Quotes about generosity

Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment.

— Jean De La Bruyere

The more he cast away the more he had.

— John Bunyan

I take as my guide the hope of a saint: in crucial things, unity... in important things, diversity... in all things, generosity.

— George Bush

Men of the noblest dispositions think themselves happiest when others share their happiness with them.

— Barry Duncan

It is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

To generous souls every task is noble.

— Euripides

Lavishness is not generosity.

— Thomas Fuller

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

— Kahlil Gibran

Giving is the business of the rich.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A generous man places the benefits he confers beneath his feet; those he receives, nearest his heart.

— Lord Greville

People who think they're generous to a fault usually think that's their only fault.

— Sidney J. Harris

Generosity is the flower of justice.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his.

— Eric Hoffer

All my experience of the world teaches me that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the safe and just side of a question is the generous and merciful side.

— Anna Jameson

Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.

— Samuel Johnson

How much easier is it to be generous than just.

— Junius

Liberality consists less in giving a great deal than in gifts well-timed.

— Jean De La Bruyere

What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.

— Francois De La Rochefoucauld

What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.

— Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Generosity during life is a very different thing from generosity in the hour of death; one proceeds from genuine liberality and benevolence, the other from pride or fear.

— Horace Mann

Many people are capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

— Alexander Pope

What I gave I have, what I spent I had; and what I left I lost.

— Robert of Doncaste

The poor don't know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

Generosity is nothing else than a craze to possess. All which I abandon, all which I give, I enjoy in a higher manner through the fact that I give it away. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

Is it not odd that the only generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker.

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

He who gives what he would as readily throw away, gives without generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self sacrifice.

— Sir Henry Taylor

If you're a generous person you'll have no trouble admitting that somebody else is good. If you're a better person you'll find it's total impossibility.

— Source Unknown

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore of nicely-calculated less or more.

— William Wordsworth

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.

— Jon Kabat Zinn

If someone wants to give you something, you shouldn't take that away from them.

— Leslie Miklosy

A trivial generosity of a stranger, perhaps it will let you thank forever.

— Mak Kazeronnie