Quotes About Generosity

The 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.

Generosity 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.

As counterintuitive as it seems, generosity begins wherever you are. It is important to make generosity a priority.

For most of us, generosity is a quality that must be developed. We have to respect that it will grow gradually; otherwise our spirituality can become idealistic and imitative, acting out the image of generosity before it has become genuine.

She had never realized any love save love as passion. Such love, though it expends itself in generosity and thoughtfulness, though it give birth to visions and to great poetry, remains among the sharpest expressions of self-interest. Not until it has passed though a long servitude, though its own self-hatred, though mockery, though great doubts, can it take its place among the loyalties. Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday.

Nowhere are the generosity and the kindness and mercy of God more manifest than in repentance.

If we are to have a culture as resilient and competent in the face of necessity as it needs to be, then it must somehow involve within itself a ceremonious generosity toward the wilderness of natural force and instinct. The farm must yield a place to the forest, not as a wood lot, or even as a necessary agricultural principle but as a sacred grove - a place where the Creation is let alone, to serve as instruction, example, refuge; a place for people to go, free of work and presumption, to let themselves alone. (pg. 125, The Body and the Earth)

It was the seventh of November, 1918. The war was finally over. Maybe it would be declared a holiday and named War's End Day or something equally hopeful and wrong. Wars would break out again. Violence was part of human nature as much as love and generosity.

God doesn't want your careful virtue, He wants your reckless generosity.

The key word of the dedicated Christian should be 'give.' Charitable contributions speak eloquently of your unselfish Christian generosity.

My parents didn't believe in luck. They believed in hard work and in preparing me to take advantage of opportunity. Like many parents, they taught me to be generous but never to depend on the generosity of others.

Generosity is an activity that loosens us up. By offering whatever we can - a dollar, a flower, a word of encouragement - we are training in letting go.

There's always another level up. There's always another ascension. More grace, more light, more generosity, more compassion, more to shed, more to grow.

Overcome the angry by non-anger; overcome the wicked by goodness; overcome the miser by generosity; overcome the liar by truth.

When they favor the access of other people to education and health care, the countries of the North not only demonstrate generosity or solidarity, but also implement the principles of respecting and promoting human rights.

Life is not about warming yourself by the fire, life is about building the fire. And generosity is the match...If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap, but if you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.

At 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.

America has a long and rich tradition of generosity that began with simple acts of neighbor helping neighbor.

Generosity is often the stalking horse of control.

It's quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment right at the start where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you don't do it.

Books and bottles breed generosity, and the bibliophile and the oenophile og through life scattering largesse from their libraries and cellars

The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have. The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its translations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity. They seem as solitary, and the letter in which they are printed as rare and curious, as ever.

Tzu Chang asked Confucius about jen. Confucius said, "If you can practice these five things with all the people, you can be called jen." Tzu Chang asked what they were. Confucius said, "Courtesy, generosity, honesty, persistence, and kindness. If you are courteous, you will not be disrespected; if you are generous, you will gain everything. If you are honest, people will rely on you. If you are persistent you will get results. If you are kind, you can employ people.

We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love.

The most politically painless way to hand out goodies, without taking responsibility for their costs, is to pass a law saying that somebody else must provide those goodies at their expense, while the politicians take credit for generosity and compassion.

I write about the power of trying, because I want to be okay with failing. I write about generosity because I battle selfishness. I write about joy because I know sorrow. I write about faith because I almost lost mine, and I know what it is to be broken and in need of redemption. I write about gratitude because I am thankful - for all of it.

Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity.

The hope for the twentieth century rests on recognition that war and depression are man-made, and needless. They can be avoided in the future by turning from the nineteenth-century characteristics just mentioned (materialism, selfishness, false values, hypocrisy, and secret vices) and going back to other characteristics that our Western Society has always regarded as virtues: generosity, compassion, cooperation, rationality, and foresight, and finding a increased role in human life for love, spirituality, charity, and self discipline.

Real and lasting generosity requires that a person do more than make up his mind to give. He must also make up his heart.

What I generally get from being in Africa is a sense of warmth and openness. As a stranger, you are always welcomed into people's homes and people are always offering you food. That generosity is incredibly touching.

Everyone has so much hope for a better humanity, and many, including [Jean Paul] Sartre, turned to the idea of communism in its beginnings. Generosity had a place in people's hopes.

Never measure your generosity by what you give, but rather by what you have left.

Out of the freedom from worry that God's generosity provides comes an impulse toward simplicity rather than accumulation.

The outpouring of generosity is overwhelming. People across the Lehigh Valley are moved by the images they are seeing on TV and they want to know how they can help.

The spirit of Christmas is - and hopefully always will be - about goodwill and generosity to others and peace on earth.

If I could change one thing about myself... I would try to control my generosity.

When the preponderance of human beings choose to act with justice and generosity and kindness, then learning and love and decency prevail. When the preponderance of human beings choose power, greed, and indifference to suffering, the world is filled with war, poverty, and cruelty.

Lehman uses many conveyances—including the prose poem, the sestina, and curt rhymes—to travel across the writing life of a poet whose instinctive romanticism is always bracing and tough-minded, brimming with a rare generosity.

America will be a country of generosity and warmth, but we will also be a country of law and order.

It seemed to be a makeshift replacement for love, absenting oneself from stifling atmospheres, because love basically was a torrential storm of feeling; it thrived only in partnership with laughing generosity and truthfulness.

Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things.

We must train ourselves in courage and generosity.

Generosity isn't an act. It's a way of life.

Art can never match the luxury and superfluity of Nature. In the former all is seen; it cannot afford concealed wealth, and is niggardly in comparison; but Nature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots.

Generosity is luck going in the opposite direction, away from you. If you're generous to someone, if you do something to help him out, you are in effect making him lucky. This is important. It's like inviting yourself into a community of good fortune.

A very common flower adds generosity to beauty. It gives joy to the poor, to the rude, and to the multitudes who could have no flowers were nature to charge a price for her blossoms.

Dear young people, the Church expects great things of you and your generosity. Don’t be afraid to aim high.

Oxytocin is lauded for how it promotes warmth, generosity, social bonding, cooperation, trust, and compassion.