"Men and women grow older in this world of ours, and as the years advance they change. Of all the changes that they undergo those of their moral natures are the most painful to watch. The boy changes into the man, and there is something lost which never seems to come back again. It is like the first glow of the morning that passes away — like the bloom on the blossom that never is restored. Your grown-up boy is wise in bad things which he used to know nothing about. His life no longer sounds with a perfectly clear ring, or shines with a perfectly white lustre. He is no longer unspotted. ...The worst thing about all this staining power of the world is the way in which we come to think of it as inevitable. ... It is not true. ... Social life is lighted up with the lustre of the white, unstained robes of many a pure man or woman who walks through its very midst. ... When a man comes not merely to tolerate, but to boast of the stains that the world has flung upon him; when he wears his spots as if they were jewels; when he flaunts his unscrupulousness, and his cynicism and his disbelief and his hard-heartedness in your face as the signs and badges of his superiority; when to be innocent and unsuspicious and sensitive seems to be ridiculous and weak; when it is reputable to show that we are men of the world by exhibiting the stains that the world has left upon our reputation, our conduct, and our heart, then we understand how flagrant is the danger; then we see how hard it must be to keep ourselves unspotted from the world."

"Unto the pure all things are pure."

"Les choses valent toujours mieux dans leur source."

"The gentleman knows that whatever is imperfect and unrefined does not deserve praise. ... He makes his eyes not want to see what is not right, makes his ears not want to hear that is not right, makes his mouth not want to speak what is not right, and makes his heart not want to deliberate over what is not right. ... For this reason, power and profit cannot sway him, the masses cannot shift him, and nothing in the world can shake him."

"I am too pure for you or anyone."

"Whiter than new snow on a raven's back."

"Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable."

"Meditation and worship helps to purify the mind. Looking at beauty in the world is the first step of purifying the mind. A corrupted mind can't recognize the beauty of the world. A pure mind perceives it. A pure mind is the source of happiness."

"Have you not seen those who claim themselves to be pure? Rather, Allah purifies whom He wills, and injustice is not done to them, (even) as much as a thread (inside a date seed)."

"Eyes pure and broad like the blue lotus; mind pure, steeped in meditations; for pure deeds long accumulated, boundless in fame, your quietude guides the assembly-thus we bow our heads."

"One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure."

"Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood."

"Qual diverrà quel fiume, Nel lungo suo cammino, Se al fonte ancor vicino É torbido così?"

"Quell' onda, che ruina Dalla pendice alpina, Balza, si frange, e mormora Ma limpida si fa."

"Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life."

"True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which is deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals."

"θρησκεία καθαρὰ καὶ ἀμίαντος παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ καὶ Πατρὶ αὕτη ἐστίν, ἐπισκέπτεσθαι ὀρφανοὺς καὶ χήρας ἐν τῇ θλίψει αὐτῶν, ἄσπιλον ἑαυτὸν τηρεῖν ἀπὸ τοῦ κόσμου."

"When Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect."

"The poor must be wisely visited and liberally cared for, so that mendicity shall not be tempted into mendacity, nor want exasperated into crime."

"Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco."

"'Tis a little thing To give a cup of water; yet its draught Of cool refreshment, drain'd by fever'd lips, May give a shock of pleasure to the frame More exquisite than when nectarean juice Renews the life of joy in happiest hours."

"Misero datur quodcunque, fortunæ datur."

"The organized charity, scrimped and iced, In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ."

"Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, Whose trembling limbs have brought him to your door."

"When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth."

"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them."

"To pity distress is but human; to relieve it is Godlike."

"Nec sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo."

"Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me."

"Help thi kynne, Crist bit (biddeth), for ther bygynneth charitie."

"Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress."

"In Misery's darkest caverns known, His useful care was ever nigh, Where hopeless Anguish pour'd his groan, And lonely want retir'd to die."

"I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame."

"He is one of those wise philanthropists who, in a time of famine, would vote for nothing but a supply of toothpicks."

"Alas! for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun. Oh! it was pitiful! Near a whole city full, Home had she none."

"In every sorrowing soul I pour'd delight, And poverty stood smiling in my sight."

"It never was our guise To slight the poor, or aught humane despise."

"By Jove the stranger and the poor are sent, And what to those we give, to Jove is lent."

"Scatter plenty o'er a smiling land."

"Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heaven did a recompense as largely send; He gave to misery (all he had) a tear, He gain'd from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend."

"A kind and gentle heart he had, To comfort friends and foes; The naked every day he clad When he put on his clothes."

"Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery."

"He scorn'd his own, who felt another's woe."

"Gifts and alms are the expressions, not the essence, of this virtue."

"Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas: this woman was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did."

"Philanthropy, as has often been pointed out, saw itself as scientific, by opposition to old-fashioned, non-scientific charity. While charity-givers expect a return for their alms from God, and the value of this exchange of money for spiritual goods is realized instantly, philanthropy resembles a capitalist investment more than a simple commodity exchange. ... The investment of both money and the philanthrophist’s own moral capital is supposed to generate a moral profit, an idea foreign to alms-giving."

"You find people ready enough to do the Samaritan, without the oil and twopence."

"The best philanthropy is anonymous charity."

"'Tis not enough to help the feeble up, But to support him after."