82 Inspiring Charity Quotes

Inspiration has the remarkable power to ignite passion, fuel purpose, and drive meaningful action. Within the realm of charity, this force becomes even more potent, as it transforms goodwill into tangible change. In this collection, we've curated 82 of the most inspiring charity quotes to uplift your spirit and motivate you to make a difference. These quotes, drawn from the wisdom of philanthropists, humanitarians, and changemakers, serve as a reminder of the profound impact one person can have on the world. Whether you're seeking encouragement for a charitable endeavor or simply looking to reflect on the beauty of giving, let these words guide and inspire your journey of generosity and compassion.

1. “I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.” - Abraham Lincoln

2. “For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day.For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone....We leave you a tradition with a future.The tender loving care of human beings will never become obsolete.People even more than things have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed and redeemed and redeemed.Never throw out anybody.Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands: one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.Your “good old days” are still ahead of you, may you have many of them.” - Sam levenson

3. “Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.” - Horace Mann

4. “It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” - Mother Theresa

5. “There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” - John Holmes

6. “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” - John Bunyan

7. “There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother.” - Theodore Roosevelt

8. “Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.” - Alexander Pope

9. “Don't judge without having heard both sides. Even persons who think themselves virtuous very easily forget this elementary rule of prudence.” - Josemaría Escrivá

10. “Charity, if you have the means, is a personal choice, but charity which is expected or compelled is simply a polite word for slavery.” - Terry Goodkind

11. “What's the point of doing something good if nobody's watching?” - Nicole Kidman

12. “We only have what we give.” - Isabel Allende

13. “You have a hierarchy of values; pleasure is at the bottom of the ladder, and you speak with a little thrill of self-satisfaction, of duty, charity, and truthfulness. You think pleasure is only of the senses; the wretched slaves who manufactured your morality despised a satisfaction which they had small means of enjoying. You would not be so frightened if I had spoken of happiness instead of pleasure: it sounds less shocking, and your mind wonders from the sty of Epicurus to his garden. But I will speak of pleasure, for I see that men aim at that, and I do not know that they aim at happiness. 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 giving alms he is charitable; 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

14. “The charity that hastens to proclaim its good deeds, ceases to be charity, and is only pride and ostentation.” - William Hutton

15. “Hebrew word for "charity" tzedakah, simply means "justice" and as this suggests, for Jews, giving to the poor is no optional extra but an essential part of living a just life.” - Peter Singer

16. “What virtue is there in a man who demonstrates goodness because he has been bred to it? It is his habit from youth. But a man who has known unkindness and want, for him to be kind and charitable to those who have been the cause of his misfortunes, that is a virtuous man.” - Deanna Raybourn

17. “In the things that really matter--our covenants, the commandments, and following the prophet--we need to be completely united. In the non-essentials, we have our agency to handle things as we see fit. But, in all things, regardless of whether we make the same choices or not, we are to treat each other with dignity and respect, both of which are evidences of charity in our hearts and lives.” - Sheri L. Dew

18. “Thus, when we plead for the gift of charity, we aren't asking for lovely feelings toward someone who bugs us or someone who has injured or wounded us. We are actually pleading for our very natures to be changed, for our character and disposition to become more and more like the Savior's, so that we literally feel as He would feel and thus do what He would do.” - Sheri L. Dew

19. “You know, that man has a spirit, that each man and woman is unique, that we have duty to promote our unalienable rights and to protect them, that we have a duty to our families and ourselves, to take care of ourselves, to contribute to charity, that we have a duty to support a just and righteous law that is stable and predictable.” - Mark R. Levin

20. “I've purged myself of worldly goods; half my stuff is either being sold or going to charity. I need to go shopping.” - Christy Leigh Stewart

21. “While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.” - Chinua Achebe

22. “Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged.” - Chinua Achebe

23. “Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.” - G.K. Chesterton

24. “If I murmur in the least at affliction, if I am in any way uncharitable, if I revenge my own case, if I do anything purely to please myself or omit anything because it is a great denial, if I trust myself, if I take any praise for any good which Christ does by me, or if I am in any way proud, I shall act as my own and not God’s.” - Jonathan Edwards

25. “God damn it, you've got to be kind.” - Kurt Vonnegut

26. “Love is not patronizing and charity isn't about pity, it is about love. Charity and love are the same -- with charity you give love, so don't just give money but reach out your hand instead.” - Mother Teresa

27. “The principle of neighborhood at home always implies the principle of charity abroad. (pg. 260, The Idea of a Local Economy)” - Wendell Berry

28. “Charity even for one person does not make sense except in terms of an effort to love all Creation in response to the Creator's love for it.” - Wendell Berry

29. “تبسمك في وجه أخيك صدقة، وأمرك بالمعروف صدقة ونهيك عن المنكر صدقة، وإرشادك الرجل في أرض الضلال لك صدقة، ونصرك الرجل الرديء البصر لك صدقة، وإماطتك الحجر والشوك العظم عن الطريق لك صدقةSmiling in your brother’s face is an act of charity. So is enjoining good and forbidding evil, giving directions to the lost traveller, aiding the blind and removing obstacles from the path.(Graded authentic by Ibn Hajar and al-Albani: Hidaayat-ur-Ruwaah, 2/293)” - Anonymous

30. “Faith, hope and charity go together. Hope is practised through the virtue of patience, which continues to do good even in the face of apparent failure, and through the virtue of humility, which accepts God's mystery and trusts him even at times of darkness. Faith tells us that God has given his Son for our sakes and gives us the victorious certainty that it is really true: God is love! It thus transforms our impatience and our doubts into the sure hope that God holds the world in his hands and that, as the dramatic imagery of the end of the Book of Revelation points out, in spite of all darkness he ultimately triumphs in glory. Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the Cross, gives rise to love. Love is the light—and in the end, the only light—that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working. Love is possible, and we are able to practise it because we are created in the image of God. To experience love and in this way to cause the light of God to enter into the world—this is the invitation I would like to extend with the present Encyclical.” - Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger)

31. “So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.” - Robert Green Ingersoll

32. “Once poverty is gone, we'll need to build museums to display its horrors to future generations. They'll wonder why poverty continued so long in human society - how a few people could live in luxury while billions dwelt in misery, deprivation and despair.” - Muhammad Yunus

33. “the holy art of “giving for Jesus’ sake” ought to be much more strongly developed among us Christians. Never forget that all state relief for the poor is a blot on the honor of your savior. The fact that the government needs a safety net to catch those who would slip between the cracks of our economic system is evidence that I have failed to do God’s work. The government cannot take the place of Christian charity. A loving embrace isn’t given with food stamps. The care of a community isn’t provided with government housing. The face of our Creator can’t be seen on a welfare voucher. What the poor need is not another government program; what they need is for Christians like me to honor our savior.” - Abraham Kuyper

34. “If you’re in the luckiest one per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.” - Warren Buffett

35. “Give, but give until it hurts.” - Mother Teresa

36. “Very well. He'd lighten up. As a matter of fact, he felt as light as the bubbly froth that flew from the lips of the waves. Whatever else his long, unprecedented life might have been, it had been fun. Fun! If others should find that appraisal shallow, frivolous, so be it. To him, it seemed now to largely have been some form of play. And he vowed that in the future he would strive to keep that sense of play more in mind, for he'd grown convinced that play--more than piety, more than charity or vigilance--was what allowed human beings to transcend evil.” - Tom Robbins

37. “We believe that only government has the capacity--not to mention the political and moral responsibility--to promote the general welfare. Father Kramer as quoted in Sweet Charity?” - Janet Poppendieck

38. “The inconsistencies that haunt our relationships with animals also result from the quirks of human cognition. We like to think of ourselves as the rational species. But research in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics shows that our thinking and behavior are often completely illogical. In one study, for example, groups of people were independently asked how much they would give to prevent waterfowl from being killed in polluted oil ponds. On average, the subjects said they would pay $80 to save 2,000 birds, $78 to save 20,000 birds, and $88 to save 200,000 birds. Sometimes animals act more logically than people do; a recent study found that when picking a new home, the decisions of ant colonies were more rational than those of human house-hunters. What is it about human psychology that makes it so difficult for us to think consistently about animals? The paradoxes that plague our interactions with other species are due to the fact that much of our thinking is a mire of instinct, learning, language, culture, intuition, and our reliance on mental shortcuts.” - Hal Herzog

39. “That's what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.” - Simone de Beauvoir

40. “Having leveled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home.” - Emily Brontë

41. “To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own.” - Abraham Lincoln

42. “I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.” - C.S. Lewis

43. “The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.” - Dorothy Day

44. “I gave him everything from my lunches I hate, which is called Charity.” - David James Duncan

45. “As they were walking, a beggar came up, holding his hand out and crying, "Baksheesh! Baksheesh!"Mike kept on going but Mitchell stopped. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out twenty paise and placed it in the beggar's dirty hand.Mike said, "I used to give to beggars when I first came here. But then I realized, it's hopeless. It never stops.""Jesus said you should give to whoever asks you," Mitchell said."Yeah, well," Mike said, "obviously Jesus was never in Calcutta.” - Jeffrey Eugenides

46. “The Sikh gave him the money. When Menon asked for his address so that he could repay the man, the Sikh said that Menon owed the debt to any stranger who came to him in need, as long as he lived. The help came from a stranger and was to be repaid to a stranger.” - Robert Fulghum

47. “In a world plagued with commonplace tragedies, only one thing exists that truly has the power to save lives, and that is love.” - Richelle Goodrich

48. “Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.” - Marcus Aurelius

49. “Many love humanity only in order to forget God with a clear conscience.” - Nicolás Gómez Dávila

50. “One important aspect of justice, Jose Miranda reminds us, involves the restoration of what has been stolen. Giving food to the hungry or clothing to the naked is not a charitable handout but an exercise in simple justice - restoring to the poor what is rightfully theirs, what has been taken from them unjustly.” - Robert McAfee Brown

51. “The greatest gift you can ever give is yourself.” - Michel Templet

52. “Our prayers for others flow more easily than those for ourselves. This shows we are made to live by charity.” - C.S. Lewis

53. “I believe when you integrate charity in your craft and not just think of the fame and riches it would entitle you with, you will feel this true sense of fulfillment. Carry on your mission, of where God destined you to be- to use His gifts in good ways and not just for yourself.” - Elizabeth E. Castillo

54. “Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?” - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

55. “The rich world likes and wishes to believe that someone, somewhere, is doing something for the Third World. For this reason, it does not inquire too closely into the motives or practices of anyone who fulfills, however vicariously, this mandate.” - Christopher Hitchens

56. “Helping others carries its own rewards, the first of which is a return to humanity.” - Richard Paul Evans

57. “Your uniqueness is your greatest strength, not how well you emulate others.” - Simon S. Tam

58. “The purpose of any charity is simply to turn people's mirrors into windows. An outward view of the world's needs are vast in comparison to an inward one.” - Shannon L. Alder

59. “Saint Augustine … insisted that scripture taught nothing but charity. Whatever the biblical author may have intended, any passage that seemed to preach hatred and was not conducive to love must be interpreted allegorically and made to speak of charity.” - Karen Armstrong

60. “Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said, "Where there is no money, there is no learning." The rabbis explain that unless people's stomachs are full and satisfied, they cannot study, grow spiritually, and do good works.” - H.W. Charles

61. “Wanting help, I reached out to serve. Seeking happiness, I smiled and offered comfort. Yearning for love, I showed love. And now I understand. My life was never about me, it was always about you.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

62. “There are these amazing little seeds called compassion.  You should grow some.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

63. “I want to be a woman who lives totally abandoned to the first commandment: to love my Lord, my God, with all my heart. I don’t want the reputation that I love God, I don’t want to write songs about loving God, I don’t want to talk about loving God. I want to actually love God. When I close my eyes, I want my heart to move. When I close my eyes and I look at Him, I want to feel alive on the inside. I want to look at Him with a fire in my heart and it’s real.” - Misty Edwards

64. “...a great man who is vicious will only be a great doer of evil, and a rich man who is not liberal will be only a miserly beggar; for the possessor of wealth is not made happy by possessing it, but by spending it - and not by spending as he please but by knowing how to spend it well. To the poor gentleman there is no other way of showing that he is a gentleman than by virtue, by being affable, well-bred, courteous, gentle-mannered and helpful; not haughty, arrogant or censorious, but above all by being charitable...and no one who sees him adorned with the virtues I have mentioned, will fail to recognize and judge him, though he know him not, to be of good stock.” - Miguel Cervantes

65. “In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St. Augustine describes the desolation into which the death of his friend Nebridius plunged him (Confessions IV, 10). Then he draws a moral. This is what comes, he says, of giving one’s heart to anything but God. All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away.” - C.S. Lewis

66. “That churchgoers do the lion's share of the charitable work in our communities is simply untrue. They get credit for it because they do a better job of tying the good works they do to their creed. But according to a 1998 study, 82% of volunteerism by churchgoers falls under the rubric of "church maintenance" activities -- volunteerism entirely within, and for the benefit of, the church building and immediate church community. As a result of this siphoning of volunteer energy into the care and feeding of churches themselves, most of the volunteering that happens out in the larger community -- from AIDS hospices to food shelves to international aid workers to those feeding the hungry and housing the homeless and caring for the elderly -- comes from the category of "unchurched" volunteers.” - Dale McGowan

67. “The Three D's of Creating True Happiness For All.......Declutter - Remove all unwanted items from your home,Donate - to your local charity, Deduct - Save money by claiming your donation on your tax return” - Christina Scalise

68. “I am astonished at the pleasure one experiences in doing good; and I should be tempted to believe that what we call virtuous people have not so much merit as they lead us to suppose.” - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

69. “This much is true: When you are about to effect the lives of hundreds of people, Satan will do everything he can to prevent it from happening. Often pride and anger are his best assassins.” - Shannon L. Alder

70. “We never think lightly of those who walk with us on our uphill days.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

71. “I hate these affairs", he'd told her once, tearing up an engraved invitation to an exclusive charity ball. "They're the worst kind of discrimination. An invitation doesn't really mean that you're invited; it means that a whole lot of people aren't” - Melinda Cross

72. “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

73. “A single act of kindness is like a drop of oil on a patch of dry skin—seeping, spreading, and affecting more than the original need.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

74. “Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.” - John D. Rockefeller

75. “Every sunrise is an invitation for us to arise and brighten someone's day.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

76. “Once the demands of necessity and propriety have been met, the rest that one owns belongs to the poor.” - Pope Leo XIII

77. “Charity you can give even when you haven't got.” - Bernard Malamud

78. “Little deeds that proceed from charity please God and have their place among meritorious acts.” - St. Francis de Sales

79. “The body is poisoned through the mouth, even so is the heart through the ear ... And even if we do mean no harm, the Evil One means a great deal, and he will use those idle words as a sharp weapon against some neighbor's heart.” - St. Francis de Sales

80. “Truly it is a blessed thing to love on earth as we hope to love in Heaven, and to begin that friendship here which is to endure for ever there.” - St. Francis de Sales

81. “Ought we not to love dearly the neighbor, who truly represents to us the sacred Person of our Master? And is this not one of the most powerful motives we could have for loving each other with an ardently burning love?” - St. Francis de Sales

82. “Our possessions are not ours- God has given them to us to cultivate, that we may make them fruitful and profitable in His Service, and so doing we shall please Him.” - St. Francis de Sales