QUINTESSENTIAL QUOTES

To share your own favorite quotes and anecdotes with your colleagues, please email it to Kelly Hollingsworth at khollingsworth@afpchicago.org.  If it is not your own, original work, please be sure to include the author with your submission.

"It is more blessed to give than to receive."
-- Acts, 20:35

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."
-- Aesop, The Lion and the Mouse

"One volunteer is better than ten forced men."
-- African Proverb

"If service is the rent you pay for your existence on this earth, are you behind in your rent?"
-- Robert G Allen

"Charity begins at home and generally dies from lack of outdoor exercise." 
-- Anonymous

"Philanthropy: giving your money to people who will possibly appreciate it rather than leaving it to your relatives."
-- Anonymous

"Anyone can give away money or spend it, but to do all this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, for the right reason, and in the right way, is no longer something easy that anyone can do. It is for this reason that good conduct [in such matters] is rare, praiseworthy, and noble."
-- Aristotle, Book Two, Nicomachean Ethics

"In charity there is no excess."
-- Sir Francis Bacon, Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature, 1625

"The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose."
-- Hada Bejar

"The most satisfying thing in life is to have been able to give a large part of one's self to others."
-- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

"Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else's life forever."
-- Margaret Cho

"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."
-- Sir Winston Churchill

"I believe that individuals can make a difference in society. Since periods of change such as the present one come so rarely in human history, it is up to each of us to make the best use of our time to help create a happier world."
--  The Dalai Lama

"It's very difficult to be continuously charitable in a capitalistic society. You've also got to make sure that you can pay everyone who works for you."
-- Felix Dennis

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another."
-- Charles Dickens

"One of the great movements in my lifetime among educated people is the need to commit themselves to action. Most people are not satisfied with giving money; we also feel we need to work."
-- Peter Drucker

"It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it."
-- Albert Einstein

"There is no ‘division of labor’ between love for one’s own and love for strangers. On the contrary, the condition for the existence of the former is the existence of the latter."
-- Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

"Every community needs a great many services...by rewarding such work with honor and esteem, the very best men can be had for nothing."
-- John Kenneth Galbraith

"Charity sees the need, not the cause."  
-- German proverb

"For this I bless you most: You give much and know not that you give at all."
-- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet - "The Farewell"

"I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
-- Ettiene De Grellet

"The Return we reap from generous actions is not always evident."
-- Francesco Guicciardini

"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit."
-- Nelson Henderson

"I was fortunate to get a scholarship when I went to Lehigh University and Princeton. They were both wonderful schools. Somebody was kind enough to spend their money to educate people that they would never get to know. That’s what I think philanthropy is about."
-- Lee Iacocca

"A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization."
-- Samuel Johnson, Boswell: Life of Johnson

"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." 
-- Helen Keller

"Philanthropy flows from a loving heart not an overstuffed pocketbook."
-- Douglas M. Lawson

"To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own." 
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
-- Margaret Mead

"When the idea came up, (Newman's Own) I said, ‘Are you crazy? Stick my face on the label of salad dressing?’ And then, of course, we got the whole idea of exploitation and how circular it is. Why not, really, go to the fullest length, and the silliest length, in exploiting yourself and turn the proceeds back to the community?"
--Paul Newman

"To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it."
-- Mother Teresa

"Philanthropy is an important subject of liberal education because it examines the role of good works in shaping our conceptions of the good society and the good life." 
-- Robert L. Payton

"Think of giving not only as a duty but as a privilege."
-- John D. Rockefeller

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
-- Theodore Roosevelt

"Compassion is the basis of all morality."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

"You must give some time to your fellow men. Even if it's a little thing, do something for others - something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it."
-- Albert Schweitzer

"Love sought is good, but given unsought is better."
-- William Shakespeare

"We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own."
-- Ben Sweetland

"All that is not given is lost."
-- Rabindranath Tagore

" ‘If I give it, what can I enjoy?’
Such selfish thinking is the demon’s way.
‘If I enjoy it, what can I give?’
Such altruism is the way of gods."
-- Robert A. E. Thurman’s Essential Tibetan Buddhism, From Shantideva’s Teaching of Great Compassion, Tolerance, Remedy for Anger,1995

"The more [the Master] does for others,
The happier he is.
The more he gives to others,
The wealthier he is."
-- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

"Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse."
-- George Washington

"All I do know is that life cannot be understood without much charity, cannot be lived without much charity. It is love, and not German philosophy, that is the true explanation of this world, whatever may be the explanation of the next."
-- Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

"I choose to rise up out of that storm and see that in moments of desperation, fear, and helplessness, each of us can be a rainbow of hope, doing what we can to extend ourselves in kindness and grace to one another. And I know for sure that there is no them... there's only us."
--Oprah Winfrey

"That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love."
-- William Wordsworth