100+ Charity Quotes To Inspire Giving in People
Published Nov 15, 2021
The dictionary defines charity in two ways: the voluntary giving of help to those in need and kindness and tolerance in judging others. Unfortunately, this is not how many people understand this word.
A common misconception is that charity is only for the rich and you can’t be charitable if you’re barely getting by. But as has been proven by the likes of Mother Teresa, charity is not measured by how much you give. Rather, it is the act of giving and the intent of the giver that truly matters.
Besides, from the definition above, charity is not just about giving. It is also in how we treat others. Charity is in how you make a stranger feel welcome, in how you make others feel good about themselves, in how you help a disabled man cross the street – it’s literally in everything we do.
So wherever you are and whatever you do, practice charity as much as you can. And don’t forget to inspire others to do the same too. If you don’t know where to start, using these charity quotes in your fundraising activities is a great way to get it going:
- It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. – Kahlil Gibran
- Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed. – Samuel Johnson
- In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity. – Richard Baxter
- No one has ever become poor by giving. – Anne Frank
- Charity brings to life again those who are spiritually dead. – St. Thomas Aquinas
- If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else. – Confucius
- As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled. – Victor Hugo
- Charity begins at home, but should not end there. – Scottish Proverb
- No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. – Aesop
- Be charitable to everyone but yourself. – Joseph Joubert
- We only have what we give. – Isabel Allende
- Charity is to will and do what is just and right in every transaction. – Emmanuel Swedenborg
- We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. – Winston Churchill
- The charity that is a trifle to us can be precious to others. – Homer
- As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands: one for helping yourself, the other for helping others. – Sam Levenson
- Our true acquisitions lie only in our charities, we get only as we give. – William Simms
- Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. – St. Paul
- Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. – Buddha
- Charity makes no decrease in property – Arabian Proverb
- It is more blessed to give than to receive. – Acts 20:35
- Flatter not thyself in thy faith in God if thou hast not charity for thy neighbor. – Francis Quarles
- You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you. – John Bunyan
- If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one. – Mother Teresa
- The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves. – Horace Mann
- The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. – Mahatma Gandhi
- It’s easier to take than to give. It’s nobler to give than to take. The thrill of taking lasts a day. The thrill of giving lasts a lifetime. – Joan Marques
- Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. – Ian Maclaren
- Every charitable act is a stepping stone towards heaven. – Henry Ward Beecher
- No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. – Charles Dickens
- Our mind is enriched by what we receive, our heart by what we give. – Victor Hugo
- Think of giving not as a duty but as a privilege. – John D. Rockefeller Jr.
- Charity never humiliated him who profited from it, nor ever bound him by the chains of gratitude, since it was not to him but to God that the gift was made. – Antoine de Saint – Exupery
- Every sunrise is an invitation for us to arise and brighten someone’s day. – Richelle E. Goodrich
- Wealth isn’t always measured in dollar signs. We each have time, talent, and creativity, all of which can be powerful forces for positive change. Share your blessings in whatever form they come and to whatever level you have been blessed. – Jon M. Huntsman
- Charity sees the need, not the cause. – German Proverb
- I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver. – Maya Angelou
- Charity is kind. It is not easily provoked. It thinks no evil, it believes all things, hopes all things. – Cotton Mather
- When our cup runs over, we let others drink the drops that fall, but not a drop from within the rim, and call it charity; when the crumbs are swept from our table, we think it generous to let the dogs eat them; as if that were charity which permits others to have what we cannot keep. – Henry Ward Beecher
- The wise man does not lay up his own treasures. The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own. – Lao Tzu
- Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. – St. Francis of Assisi
- The charitable give out at the door, and God puts in at the window. – John Ray
- Help others without any reason and give without the expectation of receiving anything in return. – Roy T. Bennett
- It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving. – Mother Teresa
- Giving is not just about making a donation. It is about making a difference. – Kathy Calvin
- Generosity consists not the sum given but the manner in which it is bestowed – Mahatma Gandhi
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 – Jack London
- Charity must become a fundamental state of mind and heart that guides us in all we do. – Joseph B. Wirthlin
- Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth. – Mohammed Ali
- Charity should always be a constant. – Eva LaRue
- Every man goes down to his death bearing in his hands only that which he has given away. – Persian Proverb
- If you’re in the luckiest one percent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 percent. – Warren Buffett
- Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable. – Charles Caleb Colton
- The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful than a thousand heads bowing in prayer. – Mahatma Gandhi
- The next time you want to withhold your help, or your love, or your support for another for whatever reason, ask yourself a simple question: do the reasons you want to withhold it reflect more on them or on you? And which reasons do you want to define you forevermore? – Dan Pearce
- Everyone has the potential to give something back. – Princess Diana
- Give, but give until it hurts. – Mother Teresa
- The best philanthropy is constantly in search of the finalities—a search for a cause, an attempt to cure evils at their source. – John Rockefeller
- Charity is a supreme virtue and the great channel through which the mercy of God is passed on to mankind. It is the virtue that unites men and inspires their noblest efforts. – Conrad Hilton
- Compassion is the root of charity. – Lailah Gifty Akita
- Charity is a universal remedy against discord and a holy cement for mankind. – William Penn
- The proper aim of giving is to put the recipients in a state where they no longer need our gifts. – C.S. Lewis
- If you combine all the spectral rays into a single beam, you get white light; and if you combine all the virtues into a single beam you get charity. – Austin O’Malley
- He who has never denied himself for the sake of giving has but glanced at the joys of charity. – Anne Swetchine
- He who has no charity deserves no mercy. – English Proverb
- You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. – Victor Hugo
- Beauty is not who you are on the outside, it is the wisdom and time you gave away to save another struggling soul like you. – Shannon L. Alder
- What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other? – George Eliot
- Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. – Martin Luther King Jr.
- When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed. – Maya Angelou
- A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle. – Benjamin Franklin
- The value of a man resides in what he gives. – Albert Einstein
- Sometimes those who give the most are the ones with the least to spare. – Mike McIntyre
- The best recreation is to do good. – William Penn
- Our prayers for others flow more easily than those for ourselves. This shows we are made to live by charity. – C.S. Lewis
- Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you. – Shannon Alder
- We should be rigorous in judging ourselves and gracious in judging others. – John Wesley
- As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way. – Mary Anne Radmacher
- Don’t judge without having heard both sides. Even persons who think themselves virtuous very easily forget this elementary rule of prudence. – Josemaría Escrivá
- Charity and love are the same — with charity you give love, so don’t just give money but reach out your hand instead. – Mother Teresa
- The only time to look down on your neighbor is when you’re bending over to help them. – Linda Castillo
- There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother. – Theodore Roosevelt
- We are not put on this earth for ourselves but are placed here for each other. If you are there always for others, then in time of need, someone will be there for you. – Jeff Warner
- Everyone can be great because everyone can serve. – Martin Luther King Jr.
- If we keep waiting for the next person to do good then no one would, then years later we start to reflect on why no one did the good that anyone could have done including You. – Razak Olu
- Donating a dollar from two dollars is a bigger donation than donating a dollar from a hundred dollars. – Amit Kalantri
- And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. – I Corinthians 13:2
- That best portion of a good man’s life: His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. – William Wordsworth
- There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up. – John Holmes
- 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
- Always give without remembering and always receive without forgetting. – Brian Tracy
- For it is in giving that we receive. – St. Francis of Assisi
- Be ever watchful for the opportunity to shelter little children with the umbrella of your charity; be generous to their schools, their hospitals, and their places of worship. For, as they must bear the burdens of our mistakes, so are they in their innocence the repositories of our hopes for the upward progress of humanity. – Conrad Hilton
- Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can. – John Wesley
- Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give. – Eleanor Roosevelt
- It is the apathetic person that sees the cause while the charitable person sees the need. – Shannon L. Adler
- Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others. – Booker T. Washington
- Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. – Desmond Tutu
- Life’s persistent and most urgent question is “What are you doing for others? – Martin Luther King Jr.
- The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve. – Albert Schweitzer
- Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. – St. Paul
- You can always-always-give something, even if it’s a simple act of kindness! If everyone were to give in this way and didn’t scrimp on kindly words, there would be much more love and justice in the world! – Anne Frank
- Any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. – Mahatma Gandhi
- Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you. – Princess Diana
Men lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these, they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve. – St. Francis of Assisi
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