A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines.
Ben Franklin (1706-1790)
A thing is bigger for being shared.
Gaelic (on generosity)
Be just before you are generous.
E. Haywood (1745)
Give even an onion, graciously.
Afghan (on generosity)
Good words are worth much and cost little.
George Herbert (1593-1632)
Great spenders are bad lenders.
Ben Franklin (1706-1790)
If you have, give; if you lack, seek.
Malay (on generosity)
It is better to return a borrowed pot with a little something you last cooked in it.
Omaha (Native American) (on the conduct of life)
It is said that you can’t take it with you; I say there are two things you can take with you: the things you do for others and the things you do to others
(harold h. cornett, jr.)
Nice words are free, so choose ones that please another’s ears.
Vietnamese (on courtesy and respect)
No act of kindness no matter how small is ever wasted.
Aesop (c.620-560 BC)
Nothing is impossible to the willing heart.
John Heywood (c.1497-1580)
One good turn deserves another.
Aesop (c.620-560 BC)
One hand for yourself and one for the ship.
unknown
Please all and you will soon please none.
Aesop (c.620-560 BC)
Poor people share with the heart.
Haitian (on generosity)
Sacrificing means more.
unknown
Scatter with one hand; gather with two.
Welsh (on thrift)
What you do to others will bear fruit in you.
Singhalese (on generosity)
Without kindness there can be no true joy.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
You can’t please everyone.
unknown
You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
Ben Franklin (1706-1790)
You may light another’s candle at your own without loss.
Danish (on generosity)
Your time is the greatest gift you can give to someone.
unknown
Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.
Albert Camus
True generosity is an offering; given freely and out of pure love. No strings attached. No expectations.
Suze Orman
Real generosity is doing something nice for someone who will never find out.
Frank A. Clark
Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.
Khalil Gibran
Generosity is nothing else than a craze to possess. All which I abandon, all which I give, I enjoy in a higher manner through the fact that I give it away. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Giving frees us from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others.
Barbara Bush
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
Generosity could be as contagious as the zombie plague as long as enough people were willing to be carriers.
Jonathan Maberry
It takes generosity to discover the whole through others. If you realize you are only a violin, you can open yourself up to the world by playing your role in the concert.
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Being generous often consists of simply extending a hand. That’s hard to do if you are grasping tightly to your righteousness, your belief system, your superiority, your assumptions about others, your definition of normal.
Patti Digh
Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else’s life forever.
Margaret Cho
What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.
Albert Pike
He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Generosity consists not the sum given, but the manner in which it is bestowed
Anonymous
One would give generous alms if one had the eyes to see the beauty of a cupped receiving hand.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing
Alexander Pope
It is through generous giving, that we affirm before the world, our nation’s faith in the inalienable right of every man, to a life of freedom, justice and security.
Harry S. Truman
Giving is God’s way. It is the way that I now understand is the truth of the Universe. Giving multiplies me and makes me feel complete and fulfilled. Giving makes me feel that I make a real and important difference.
Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen
Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.
Albert Camus
It is a powerful practice to be generous when you are the one feeling in need.
Allan Lokos
As desire abates, generosity is born. When we are connected and present, what else is there to do but give?
Jack Kornfield
Generosity during life is a very different thing from generosity in the hour of death; one proceeds from genuine liberality and benevolence, the other from pride or fear.
Horace Mann
Never measure your generosity by what you give, but rather by what you have left.
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
Generosity is the flower of justice.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
