39 Inspiring Altruism Quotes

In a world that often feels increasingly self-centered, the concept of altruism shines brightly as a beacon of hope and humanity. Altruism, defined as the selfless concern for the well-being of others, reminds us of the profound impact kindness and generosity can have on our lives and the lives of those around us. Whether through small acts of kindness or grand gestures, altruism inspires and empowers us to build connections and foster communities built on empathy and compassion. In this blog post, we have gathered a curated collection of the top 39 inspiring altruism quotes, each offering a glimpse into the transformative power of giving and a reminder of the boundless potential of the human spirit. Let these words of wisdom motivate you to embrace altruism in your daily life and to see the world anew through a lens of selfless love and generosity.

1. “People do more for their fellows than return favors and punish cheaters. They often perform generous acts without the slightest hope for payback ranging from leaving a tip in a restaurant they will never visit again to throwing themselves on a live grenade to save their brothers in arms. [Robert] Trivers together with the economists Robert Frank and Jack Hirshleifer has pointed out that pure magnanimity can evolve in an environment of people seeking to discriminate fair weather friends from loyal allies. Signs of heartfelt loyalty and generosity serve as guarantors of one s promises reducing a partner s worry that you will default on them. The best way to convince a skeptic that you are trustworthy and generous is to be trustworthy and generous.” - Steven Pinker

2. “When you are able to shift your inner awareness to how you can serve others, and when you make this the central focus of your life, you will then be in a position to know true miracles in your progress toward prosperity.” - Wayne W. Dyer

3. “True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self; but the point is not only to get out - you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand.” - Henry James

4. “The positive emotions that arise in...unpromising circumstances demonstrate that social ties and meaningful work are deeply desired, readily improvised, and intensely rewarding. The very structure of our economy and society prevent these goals from being achieved.” - Rebecca Solnit

5. “It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you.” - Charlotte Brontë

6. “Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.” - Richard Dawkins

7. “Just because I do not accept the teachings of the devotaries does not mean I've discarded a belief in right and wrong.""But the Almighty determines what is right!""Must someone, some unseen thing, declare what is right for it to be right? I believe that my own morality -- which answers only to my heart -- is more sure and true than the morality of those who do right only because they fear retribution.” - Brandon Sanderson

8. “My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases myself.” - Robert A. Heinlein

9. “Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you.” - Karl Lagerfeld

10. “And you spend your day going around from the house of the washerman to the house of the sweeper, asking about this one's son and that one's nephew, but spending no time with your own family. It is no secret that many people here think that you are a communist.'Rasheed reflected that this probably meant only that he loathed the poverty and injustice endemic to the village, and that he made no particular secret of it.” - Vikram Seth

11. “We have so far to go to realize our human potential for compassion, altruism, and love.” - Jane Goodall

12. “Help someone, you earn a friend. Help someone too much, you make an enemy.” - Erol Ozan

13. “Human tool-makers always make tools that will help us get what we want, and what we want hasn't changed for thousands of years because as far as we can tell the human template hasn't changed either. We still want the purse that will always be filled with gold, and the Fountain of Youth. We want the table that will cover itself with delicious food whenever we say the word, and that will be cleaned up afterwards by invisible servants. We want the Seven-League Boots so we can travel very quickly, and the Hat of Darkness so we can snoop on other people without being seen. We want the weapon that will never miss, and the castle that will keep us safe. We want excitement and adventure; we want routine and security. We want to have a large number of sexually attractive partners, and we also want those we love to love us in return, and be utterly faithful to us. We want cute, smart children who will treat us with the respect we deserve. We want to be surrounded by music, and by ravishing scents and attractive visual objects. We don't want to be too hot or too cold. We want to dance. We want to speak with the animals. We want to be envied. We want to be immortal. We want to be gods.But in addition, we want wisdom and justice. We want hope. We want to be good.” - Margaret Atwood

14. “It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor demand your admiration.” - W. Somerset Maugham

15. “In honor of Oprah Winfrey: Even greater than the ability to inspire others with hope is the power to motivate them to give as much to the lives of others as they would give to their own; and to empower them to confront the worst in themselves in order to discover and claim the best in themselves.” - Aberjhani

16. “Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons.” - Arundhati Roy

17. “Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others.” - Brian Tracy

18. “Suppose you were the last one left? Suppose you did that to yourself?” - Cormac McCarthy

19. “In a pocket of his knapsack he'd found a last half packet of cocoa and he fixed it for the boy and then poured his own cup with hot water and sat blowing at the rim.You promised not to do that, the boy said.What?You know what, Papa.He poured the hot water back into the pan and took the boy's cup and poured some of the cocoa into his own and then handed it back.I have to watch you all the time, the boy said.” - Cormac McCarthy

20. “Loving others is the greatest gift we can give ourselves. Altruism that rewards one's self.” - Allan Lokos

21. “Of all public figures and benefactors of mankind, no one is loved by history more than the literary patron. Napoleon was just a general of forgotten battles compared with the queen who paid for Shakespeare's meals and beer in the tavern. The statesman who in his time freed the slaves, even he has a few enemies in posterity, whereas the literary patron has none. We thank Gaius Maecenas for the nobility of soul we attribute to Virgil; but he isn’t blamed for the selfishness and egocentricity that the poet possessed. The patron creates 'literature through altruism,' something not even the greatest genius can do with a pen.” - Roman Payne

22. “Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.” - P.J. O'Rourke

23. “In the unceasing ebb and flow of justice and oppression we must all dig channels as best we may, that at the propitious moment somewhat of the swelling tide may be conducted to the barren places of life.” - Jane Addams

24. “Perhaps the most legitimately dispiriting thing about reciprocal altruism is that it is a misnomer. Whereas with kin selection the "goal" of our genes is to actually help another organism, with reciprocal altruism the goal is that the organism be left under the impression that we've helped; the impression alone is enough to bring the reciprocation.” - Robert Wright

25. “Lawyers are alright, I guess — but it doesn't appeal to me", I said. "I mean they're alright if they go around saving innocent guys' lives all the time, and like that, but you don't do that kind of stuff if you're a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. And besides, even if you did go around saving guys' lives and all, how would you know if you did it because you really wanted to save guys' lives, or because you did it because what you really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the back and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters and everybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren't being a phony? The trouble is you wouldn't.” - J.D. Salinger

26. “What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?” - Winston Churchill

27. “I'm not a legend or a hero, I don't slay dragons, I don't do any of the things that a real hero can. But I can make things better, one day at a time, for most of the kingdom.” - Mercedes Lackey

28. “He himself didn't see it as exceptionally altruistic, because he had understood one can't be truly happy in isolation or, worse, among unhappy people. The best protection against danger, unhappiness and the sordidness of human existence is to be surrounded by people who love you.” - Andrew Ashling

29. “Religion decays, the icon remains; a narrative is forgotten, yet its representation still magnetizes.” - Julian Barnes

30. “Like, in general I think people have very complicated reasons for wanting things, and we often have no idea whether we’re actually motivated by altruism or a desire to hook up or a search for answers or what. I always get annoyed when in books or movies characters want clear things for clear reasons, because my experience of humanness is that I always want messy things for messy reasons.” - John Green

31. “You know, Emily was a selfish old woman in her way. She was very generous, but she always wanted a return. She never let people forget what she had done for them - and, that way she missed love.” - Agatha Christie

32. “I thought how you can never tell just by looking at them what they were thinking or what was happening In their lives. Even when you got daft people or drunk people on buses, people that went on stupid and shouted rubbish or tried to tell you all about themselves, you could never really tell about them either... I knew if somebody looked at me, they'd know nothing about me, either.” - David Almond

33. “Free markets and capitalism are predicated upon the definition of greed as altruistic in economics".~R. Alan Woods [2012]” - R. Alan Woods

34. “It takes a female to have a baby,It takes a woman to raise a child,It takes a mother to raise them correctly,It takes a warrior to show them how to change the world.” - Shannon L. Alder

35. “Every game is winnable if you change your mind about what the prize should be and your perspective about the players at the table.” - Shannon L. Alder

36. “The practice of cultivating altruism has a beneficial effect not only from the religious point of view but also from the mundane point of view, not only for long term spiritual development but even in terms of immediate rewards.” - His Holiness the Dalai Lama

37. “The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain stem imperative of self-interest.” - Peter Watts

38. “If we persist in defining ourselves as doomed, human nature as beyond redemption, and social institutions as beyond reform, then we shall create a future that will inexorably proceed in confirming this view. Rescuers refused to see Jews as guilty or beyond hope and themselves as helpless, despite all the evidence that could be marshaled to the contrary. They made a choice that affirmed the value and meaningfulness of each life in the midst of a diabolical social order that repeatedly denied it. Can we do otherwise?” - Samuel P. Oliner

39. “Art gives its vision to beauty not always recognized. And it surrenders freely -- whatever power it possesses to every sincere soul that seeks it. But above all else--it presents us with the gift of ourselves.” - Aberjhani