Virtues

"The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess, neither can angel or man come in danger by it."

"Charity is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands."

"In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill-will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow-men, not knowing what they do."

"It is not by ruling over his neighbours, or by seeking to hold the supremacy over those that are weaker, or by being rich, and showing violence towards those that are inferior, that happiness is found; nor can any one by these things become an imitator of God. But these things do not at all constitute His majesty. On the contrary he who takes upon himself the burden of his neighbour; he who, in whatsoever respect he may be superior, is ready to benefit another who is deficient; he who, whatsoever things he has received from God, by distributing these to the needy, becomes a god to those who receive: he is an imitator of God."

"It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world."

"It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property."

"The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good."

"It is above all the impersonal and economically rationalized (but for this very reason ethically irrational) character of purely commercial relationships that evokes the suspicion, never clearly expressed but all the more strongly felt, of ethical religions. For every purely personal relationship of man to man, of whatever sort and even including complete enslavement, may be subjected to ethical requirements and ethically regulated. This is true because the structures of these relationships depend upon the individual wills of the participants, leaving room in such relations for manifestations of the virtue of charity. But this is not the situation in the realm of economically rationalised relationships, where personal control is exercised in inverse ratio to the degree of rational differentiation of the economic structure."

"Whoever has the material possessions of this world and sees his brother in need and yet refuses to show him compassion, in what way does the love of God remain in him? Little children, we should love, not in word or with the tongue, but in deed and truth.” (1 John 3:17, 18; 2 Thess. 3: 6-12) True worship includes looking after faithful ones who may be in need of material assistance. – Jas. 1:27; 2:14-17. In his first letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul explained how material assistance may be provided to deserving ones. You can read his counsel at 1 Timothy 5: 3-21. The primary responsibility rests with each Christian to care for the needs of his own household. Older or infirm ones should receive assistance from their children, grandchildren, or other close relatives. At times, material assistance is available through governmental or social programs, so relatives or others may help the needy one to apply for such assistance. A situation might arise in which it becomes necessary for the congregation as a whole to consider providing some form of assistance to certain needy brothers and sisters who have a long history of faithful service. If there are no family members or other relatives to assist such ones and no adequate assistance from government agencies is available, the body of elders can make appropriate recommendations to provide some help. Christians consider it a privilege to share their material possessions with those in need. Many brothers and sisters may come to be in need because of persecution, wars, earthquakes, floods, famines, or other calamitous occurrences that are common in these critical times. (Matt. 24:7-9) Local congregations may not have anything to share with one another, so the Governing Body coordinates the efforts of brothers elsewhere to provide what is needed. This is similar to the way Christians in Asia Minor provided food for the brothers in Judea during a time of famine. (1 Cor. 16:1-4; 2 or. 9:1-5) By following their example, we confirm our love for our brothers and show ourselves to be genuine disciples of Jesus Christ. – John 13:35"

"There is a saying, Charity begins at home; and sometimes it is used as a squalid slogan to justify selfishness, to justify us for not bothering about people who are not near to us and dear to us. Family and friends have the first call on us; but the whole point of the saying is that it is there we begin, it is there that we learn how to love, so that, starting from there, our love may grow and grow till it gathers to itself the whole world."

"Charity is the soul of holiness. By its very nature, charity—a gift that the Spirit infuses in the heart—assumes and elevates human love and makes it capable of the perfect gift of self. Charity makes renunciation more acceptable, lightens the spiritual struggle and renders more joyous the gift of self."

"Love is the greatest thing that God can give us; for himself is love; and it is the greatest thing we can give to God; for it will also give ourselves and carry with it all that is ours. The apostle calls it the band of perfection; it is the old, and it is the new, and it is the great commandment, and it is all the commandments; for it is the fulfilling of the law. It does the work of all other graces without any instrument but its own immediate virtue. For as the love to sin makes a man sin against all his own reason, and all the discourses of wisdom, and all the advices of his friends, and without temptation, and without opportunity, so does the love of God; it makes a man chaste without the laborious arts of fasting and exterior disciplines, temperate in the midst of feasts, and is active enough to choose it without any intermedial appetites, and reaches at glory through the very heart of grace without any other arms but those of love. It is a grace that loves God for himself, and our neighbours for God. The consideration of God's goodness and bounty, the experience of those profitable and excellent emanations from him, may be, and most commonly are, the first motive of our love; but when we are once entered, and have tasted the goodness of God, we love the spring for its own excellency, passing from passion to reason, from thanking to adoring, from sense to spirit, from considering ourselves to an union with God: and this is the image and little representation of heaven; it is beatitude in picture, or rather the infancy and beginnings of glory."

"Wiping out the hunger of the Have-nots, is the treasury in which the Haves should deposit their wealth."

"To receive is bad, even for good cause; and to give is good even if there is no Heaven."

"To give to the needy alone is charity. All the rest is investment for a return."

"Christ takes on the appearance of each of the poor and assimilates Himself to all of them so that no one who believes in Him will be arrogant towards his fellow being. On the contrary, he will look on his fellow being and his neighbor as his God, regarding himself as least of all in comparison just as much with his neighbor as with his Creator, honoring his neighbor as if he were his Creator, and exhausting his all in his service, just as Christ our God poured out His blood for our salvation."

"When we buy new clothes not to keep ourselves warm but to look "well-dressed" we are not providing for any important need. We would not be sacrificing anything significant if we were to continue to wear our old clothes, and give the money to famine relief. By doing so, we would be preventing another person from starving. It follows from what I have said earlier that we ought to give money away, rather than spend it on clothes which we do not need to keep us warm. To do so is not charitable, or generous. Nor is it the kind of act which philosophers and theologians have called "supererogatory" - an act which it would be good to do, but not wrong not to do. On the contrary, we ought to give the money away, and it is wrong not to do so."

"For true evangelical faith...cannot lay dormant; but manifests itself in all righteousness and works of love; it...clothes the naked; feeds the hungry; consoles the afflicted; shelters the miserable; aids and consoles all the oppressed; returns good for evil; serves those that injure it; prays for those that persecute it."

"The best philanthropy is anonymous charity. ... The higher giving is anonymous giving."

"I believe there is no sentiment he has such faith in as that "charity begins at home" And his, I presume, is of that domestic sort which never stirs abroad at all."

"A tear for pity and a hand Open as day for melting charity."

"Charity, Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses."

"Charity itself fulfills the law. And who can sever love from charity?"

"Iniquum est conlapsis manum non porrigere; commune hoc ius generis humani est."

"You will remember that Christ said, "Judge not lest ye be judged." That principle I do not think you would find was popular in the law courts of Christian countries. I have known in my time quite a number of judges who were very earnest Christians, and none of them felt that they were acting contrary to Christian principles in what they did. Then Christ says, "Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." That is a very good principle. ... Then there is one other maxim of Christ which I think has a great deal in it, but I do not find that it is very popular among some of our Christian friends. He says, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that which thou hast, and give to the poor." That is a very excellent maxim, but, as I say, it is not much practised. All these, I think, are good maxims, although they are a little difficult to live up to. I do not profess to live up to them myself; but then, after all, it is not quite the same thing as for a Christian."

"In a just world, there would be no possibility of 'charity'."

"We do not see faith, hope, and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization. Faith — in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships. Hope — renewed because we know so well the progress we have made. Charity — in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves."

"The Gods have not ordained hunger to be our death: even to the well-fed man comes death in varied shape, The riches of the liberal never waste away, while he who will not give finds none to comfort him, The man with food in store who, when the needy comes in miserable case begging for bread to eat, Hardens his heart against him, when of old finds not one to comfort him. Bounteous is he who gives unto the beggar who comes to him in want of food, and the feeble, Success attends him in the shout of battle. He makes a friend of him in future troubles, No friend is he who to his friend and comrade who comes imploring food, will offer nothing. Let the rich satisfy the poor implorer, and bend his eye upon a longer pathway, Riches come now to one, now to another, and like the wheels of cars are ever rolling, The foolish man wins food with fruitless labour: that food – I speak the truth – shall be his ruin, He feeds no trusty friend, no man to love him. All guilt is he who eats with no partaker."

"Charity is the mark of human nature. It is so because charity is love made flesh. It is the reification (a word indicating the act of making the abstract real) of the deep affection that unites all humans. It is in fact not enough to proclaim love, if human beings do not make it touchable. It is not enough to say we love others, if we do not render our love a visible act."

"There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself."

"Charity ain’t giving people what you wants to give, it’s giving people what they need to get."

"In Faith and Hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is charity."

"Ὁ πλήρης ἀγάπης ἄνθρωπος μετά τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν τῆς καρδίας βλέπει τὴν εἰκόνα Κυρίου ἐν τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ."

"I do not see any difference between a gift to keep in repair what is called "God's house" and a gift to keep in repair the churchyard round it, which is often called "God's acre.""

"Charity keepeth us in Faith and Hope, and Hope leadeth us in Charity. And in the end all shall be Charity."

"What is a charitable heart? It is a heart which is burning with love for the whole creation, for men, for the birds, for the beasts … for all creatures. He who has such a heart cannot see or call to mind a creature without his eyes being filled with tears by reason of the immense compassion which seizes his heart; a heart which is softened and can no longer bear to see or learn from others of any suffering, even the smallest pain being inflicted upon a creature. That is why such a man never ceases to pray for the animals … [He is] … moved by the infinite pity which reigns in the hearts of those who are becoming united with God."

"Charity is really self-interest masquerading under the form of altruism."

"Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins."

"The Gita ... explains the basis for the Hindu principle of charity as Narayana-seva, i.e., serving God by serving one's fellow human... This is also the basis for Gandhi's concept of ahimsa. Krishna asserts that generosity (dana) and compassion (daya) are qualities that arise 'from me alone'."

"We are obligated to be more scrupulous in fulfilling the commandment of charity than any other positive commandment because charity is the sign of a righteous man."

"Give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you."

"The very poor constitute the last sure recourse of the hungry tramp. The very poor can always be depended upon. They never turn away the hungry. Time and again, all over the United States, have I been refused food by the big house on the hill; and always have I received food from the little shack down by the creek or marsh, with its broken windows stuffed with rags and its tired-faced mother broken with labor. Oh, you charity-mongers! Go to the poor and learn, for the poor alone are the charitable. They neither give nor withhold from their excess. They have no excess. They give, and they withhold never, from what they need for themselves, and very often from what they cruelly need for themselves. A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog when you are just as hungry as the dog."

"There is no charitable purpose which is not a benevolent purpose."

"Charity is a calm, severe duty; it must be intellectual, to be advantageous. It is a strange mistake that it should ever be considered a merit; its fulfilment is only what we owe to each other, and is a debt never paid to its full extent."

"When we hear the word “charity,” the first image that comes to our mind is “giving charity to the poor and the needy.” It is certainly a worthy enterprise, and one that needs to be defended today against those who regard giving charity as paternalistic and distracting from the fight for social justice. The poor and the needy needs our work for social justice, but they also need to be given charity."

"No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode (There they alike in trembling hope repose), The bosom of his Father and his God."

"Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began."

"It is an affirmative command to give tzedaka to the poor of Israel. ... Anyone who sees a poor man begging alms and turns away his glance from him and does not give him tzedaka transgresses a negative command, as it is said, "You shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand to your needy brother" (Deuteronomy 15:7)."

"I don't believe in charity; I believe in solidarity. Charity is vertical, so it's humiliating. It goes from top to bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other and learns from the other. I have a lot to learn from other people."

""We rise by helping others" Camden Francis - American Philanthropist, Founder of Beyond the Crisis"