Giving is true having.

Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.

If we want to fight people in the world, we should fight them with pillows – pillows stuffed with food, medicine, music… That would be so much cheaper than bombs.

I believe God’s keeping the records, and I believe you will be rewarded even in this life. Somehow, some way, God will make it up to you. It may be He protected you from an accident you never knew. You can’t give God something without God giving you more in return, whether it’s peace or joy or satisfaction.

I have found out in later years that we were very poor, but the glory of America is that we didn’t know it then.

Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.

Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

I make such big efforts to forget things and I can’t tell the story of my life because, thank God, I’m still living it.

I stayed focused, and I never surrendered, and now I’ve been blessed. now I take care of my mother, my father, and my entire whole family.

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.

See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy; Dear Jack, Don’t buy a single vote more than is necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!

O wise man! Give your wealth only to the worthy and never to others. The water of the sea received by the clouds is always sweet.

I always kind of see how I want things to be better, and I’m generally not happy with how things are or the level of service that we’re providing for people or the quality of the teams that we built. But if you look at this objectively, we’re doing so well on so many of these things. I think it’s important to have gratitude for that.

Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen – inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, ‚Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.‘

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

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.

Over the course of my career in law enforcement, I have witnessed over and over again the selflessness and sacrifice of law enforcement who lay their lives on the line every day to protect people who they will never meet and people who will never know their names.

It definitely has learning a lesson about the way you’re living your life. I wouldn’t compare our movie to that, but it has a structure where it’s about a man who doesn’t appreciate all that he has and finds out at the end that life has been great and he has to enjoy that.

Whether we’re happy with our circumstances or not, giving God praise is so important.

The only big things I’ve purchased are my dad’s heart valve and a Rolls-Royce for my parents, for their anniversary. And that was only because my dad had a Lady Gaga license plate on our old car and it was making me crazy because he was getting followed everywhere, so I bought him a new car.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

If only the people who worry about their liabilities would think about the riches they do possess, they would stop worrying.

There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.

The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude.

Heaven is long-enduring, and earth continues long. The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue thus long is because they do not live of, or for, themselves.

Compliment three people every day.

The other day the President said, I know you’ve had some rough times, and I want to do something that will show the nation what faith that I have in you, in your maturity and sense of responsibility. He paused, then said, would you like a puppy?

The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.

A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self.

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.

If you suffer, thank God! It is a sure sign that you are alive.

We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.

He has the most who is most content with the least.

I want to thank The Beatles for almost single-handedly getting me out of writer’s block.

I love life because what more is there?

We love things we love what they are.

Charity bestowed upon those who are worthy of it is like good seed sown on a good soil that yields an abundance of fruits. But alms given to those who are yet under the tyrannical yoke of the passions are like seed deposited in a bad soil. The passions of the receiver of the alms choke, as it were, the growth of merits.

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

If we don’t plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don’t have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don’t have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.

Zappa was very technical and impressed by things that were musically challenging – weird time signatures, strange keys, awkward chord sequences. Zappa was important to me as an example of everything I didn’t want to do. I’m very grateful to him, actually.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

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

I’m thankful for the incredible advances in medicine that have taken place during my lifetime. I almost certainly wouldn’t still be here if it weren’t for them.

I’m doing everything that I can, working with experts, really studying the statistics to figure out a way we can make it cool or normal to be kind and loving.

The U.S.S. George H. W. Bush is a great thing in my life. It’s amazing. A great honor.

A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy.

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.

But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people, and do our best to help them find their own grace. That’s what I strive to do, that’s what I pray to do every day.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

I’m one of the luckiest people on earth.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive.