Popular quotes about Generosity! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 117
Generosity is not limited to the giving of material things. We can be generous with our kindness and receptivity. Generosity can mean the simple giving of a smile or extending ourselves to really listen to a friend. Paradoxically, even being willing to receive the generosity of others can be a form of generosity.
Gil FronsdalThe cultivation of generosity is the beginning of spiritual awakening. Generosity has tremendous force because it arises from an inner quality of letting go. Being able to let go, to give up, to renounce, and to give generously all spring from the same source, and when we practice generosity ... we open up these qualities within ourselves.
Sharon SalzbergGenerosity is another quality which, like patience, letting go, non-judging, and trust, provides a solid foundation for mindfulness practice. You might experiment with using the cultivation of generosity as a vehicle for deep self-observation and inquiry as well as an exercise in giving. A good place to start is with yourself. See if you can give yourself gifts that may be true blessings, such as self-acceptance, or some time each day with no purpose. Practice feeling deserving enough to accept these gifts without obligation-to simply receive from yourself, and from the universe.
Jon Kabat-ZinnTrue generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the "rejects of life," to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands--whether of individuals or entire peoples--need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world.
Paulo FreireSome people are afraid of generosity. They feel they will be taken advantage of or oppressed. In cultivating generosity, we are only oppressing our greed and attachment. This allows our true nature to come out and become lighter and freer.
Ajahn ChahOne great reason why men practice generosity so little in the world, is, their finding so little there: generosity is catching; and if so many men escape it, it is in a great degree from the same reason that country-men escape the smallpox, because they meet no one to give it to them.
Fulke Greville, 1st Baron BrookeWe all have families who are longing for peace in the world and an end to the suffering caused by poverty, disease, and hunger. Untold numbers of our friends, our neighbors, our parents, and our children, are hoping that there is more understanding, more generosity, more genuine friendship, and more caring among people of all faiths and cultures.
John ConyersThese self-appointed deacons in the Church of Latter-Day American Literature seem to regard generosity (of words) with suspicion, texture with dislike, and any broad literary stroke with outright hate. The result is a strange and arid literary climate where a meaningless little fingernail paring like Nicholson Baker's Vox becomes an object of fascinated debate and dissection, and a truly ambitious American novel like Matthew's Heart of the Country is all but ignored.
Stephen KingFarmers everywhere provide bread for all humanity, but it is Christ alone who is the bread of life...Even if all the physical hunger of the world were satisfied, even if everyone who is hungry were fed by his or her own labor or by the generosity of others, the deepest hunger of man would still exist...Therefore, I say, Come, all of you, to Christ. He is the bread of life. Come to Christ and you will never be hungry again.
Pope John Paul IIAs long as we insist on relating to it strictly on our own terms-as strange to us or subject to us-the wilderness is alien, threatening, fearful. We have no choice then but to become its exploiters, and to lose, by consequence, our place in it. It is only when, by humility, openness, generosity, courage, we make ourselves able to relate to it on its terms that it ceases to be alien.
Wendell BerrySee here, if a simple act of kindness or generosity, such as buying a loaf of bread for some poor working women, can mean that wholesale death and destruction will be avoided - why, a man would be a monster who had it in his power to alleviate all that suffering yet stood by and did nothing.
Stephen R. LawheadThe upper echelon of the movie industry is easier to deal with and the work is much easier to accomplish because of this generosity of spirit and confidence that they instill in the group around them.
John TravoltaPeople want to care about people. People look after each other, given the chance. ... I believe just believing in goodness generates a tiny bit of the stuff, so that being so foolish as to believe in our better natures, if just for a day, we actually contribute to the sum total of generosity in the universe.
Julie PowellNature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots.
Henry David ThoreauAnd you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives. Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings; For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free hearted earth for mother, and God for father.
Khalil GibranDetroit is a place where we've had it pretty tough. But there is a generosity here and a well of kindness that goes deep.
Mitch AlbomIn judging our progress as individuals we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one's social position, influence and popularity, wealth and standard of education... But internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one's development as a human being. Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others - qualities which are within easy reach of every soul - are the foundation of one's spiritual life.
Nelson MandelaWe have to cultivate contentment with what we have. We really don't need much. When you know this, the mind settles down. Cultivate generosity. Delight in giving. Learn to live lightly. In this way, we can begin to transform what is negative into what is positive. This is how we start to grow up.
Tenzin PalmoThe Devil doesn't make us do anything. The Devil, for example, doesn't make us mean. Rather, when we're mean, we make the Devil. Literally. Our actions create him. Conversely, when we behave with compassion, generosity, and grace, we create God in the world.
Tom RobbinsIn doing one's work primarily for God, the fear of undue restriction is put, sooner or later, out of the question. He pays me and He pays me well. He pays me and He will not fail to pay me. He pays me not merely for the rule of thumb task, which is all that men recognize, but to everything else I bring to my job in the way of industry, good intentions and cheerfulness. If the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, as St. Paul says, we may depend upon it that He loveth a cheerful worker; and where we can cleave the way to His love there we find His endless generosity.
Basil KingAt best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another generosity and love. But it is also, all too often, where we learn nasty things like hate, rage and shame.
Barbara EhrenreichI get angry when someone calls me only rich.. I am happy with my social personality and my generosity.
Sak?p Sabanc?Refraining from stealing: care with material goods. Undertake for one week to act on every single thought of generosity that arises spontaneously in your heart.
Jack KornfieldEvery trait of beauty may be traced to some virtue, as to innocence, candor, generosity, modesty, and heroism.
Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-PierreWith gentleness overcome anger. With generosity overcome meanness. With truth overcome deceit.
Gautama BuddhaShaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre is a genuine project and a living proof of generosity of the people of Pakistan.
Hadiqa KianiSerenity, regularity, absence of vanity,Sincerity, simplicity, veracity, equanimity, Fixity, non-irritability, adaptability, Humility, tenacity, integrity, nobility, magnanimity, charity, generosity, purity. Practise daily these eighteen "ities" You will soon attain immortality.
SocratesGenerosity won't happen unless you make it a priority. The best way to make giving a priority is to make it the very first check you write every month. Before the mortgage. Before groceries or clothing. Before saving. Whatever the amount, do it first.
Andy StanleyNirvana manifests as ease, as love, as connectedness, as generosity, as clarity, as unshakable freedom. This isnโt watering down nirvana. This is the reality of liberation that we can experience, sometimes in a moment and sometimes in transformative ways that change our entire life
Jack KornfieldGreat and frequent reverses can crush and mar our bliss both by the pain they cause and by the hindrance they offer to many activities. Yet nevertheless even in adversity nobility shines through, when a man endures repeated and severe misfortune with patience, not owing to insensibility but from generosity and greatness of soul.
AristotleBe like a river in generosity and giving help. Be like a sun in tenderness and pity. Be like night when covering other's faults. Be like a dead when furious and angry. Be like earth in modesty and humbleness. Be like a sea in tolerance. Be as you are or as you look like.
RumiWho would you be without the thought "I need more money to be safe?" You might be a lot easier to be with. You might even begin to notice the laws of generosity, the laws of letting money go out fearlessly and come back fearlessly. You don't ever need more money than you have.
Byron KatieViewing the web as a platform for generosity is very different than seeing an opportunity to turn it into an ATM machine.
Seth GodinGenerosity should begin lightly and deepen later, fro when it is first rich and then lessens, people forget the kindness. Authority should begin strictly and loosen up later, for if it is loose first and then strict, people will resent the severity.
Zicheng HongIt doesn't mean old or younger. I've learned a lot from people much younger than me as well as people much older than me. So I think it's about honesty and generosity.
Kenneth BranaghWhat is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.
Francois de La RochefoucauldThe movement of the heart as we practice generosity in the outer world mirrors the movement of the heart when we let go of conditioned views about ourselves on our inner journey. Letting go creates a joyful sense of space in our minds
Sharon SalzbergI'm really interested in the difference between selfishness and generosity. It confuses me to no end because sometimes it all just feels like pure indulgence on my part.
Nate LowmanEvery minute of every hour of every day you are making the world, just as you are making yourself, and you might as well do it with generosity and kindness and style.
Rebecca SolnitThe essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something - usually ourselves.
Pema ChodronReal love doesn't seek to acquire. It gives itself away. Its very nature is that of surrender, service, and generosity.
Catherine IngramYou can tell the real Christians by their acts. They are the ones serving, the ones loving, the ones sharing whatever they have. They are withholding judgment, offering compassion, being that light they want to see in the world. They are the hands and the feet of God on earth, vessels of holiness, chalices of generosity. The next time someone calls himself a Christian, look for these qualities for the living proof.
Jan Phillips