altruism quotes

We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

There are people in the world who aren’t necessarily Christians, but they’re just naturally nice people who do a lot for other people. Those people will almost always be prosperous people.

We have observed that, in society and the world in which we live, selfishness has increased more than love for others, and that men of good will must work, each with his own strengths and expertise, to ensure that love for others increases until it is equal and possibly exceeds love for oneself.

Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor.

We just cannot worry about ourselves.

The most satisfying thing in life is to have been able to give a large part of one’s self to others.

Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one’s soul.

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.

Use power to help people. For we are given power not to advance our own purposes nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power and it is to serve people.

The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.

Help others and give something back. I guarantee you will discover that while public service improves the lives and the world around you, its greatest reward is the enrichment and new meaning it will bring your own life.

Most of the time, I’m not even working; I’m just helping people, because I feel that I am too lucky.

I have to live for others and not for myself: that’s middle-class morality.

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.

I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: ‚What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.‘

Learning to live for others isn’t something that just comes naturally to anybody. You have to train yourself to do it.

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

Encouragement to others is something everyone can give. Somebody needs what you have to give. It may not be your money; it may be your time. It may be your listening ear. It may be your arms to encourage. It may be your smile to uplift. Who knows?

Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.

If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.

Never have we stolen the intelligences of other peoples. On the contrary, in Cuba we have trained tens of thousands of doctors and other top-level professionals, for free, in order to send them back to their own countries.

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‚If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?‘ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‚If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?‘

It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.

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.

If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it’s at the end of your arm, as you get older, remember you have another hand: The first is to help yourself, the second is to help others.

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death!

We are not cisterns made for hoarding, we are channels made for sharing.

There is a moral obligation that those who have should give to those who don’t.

My father always taught me that when you help other people, then God will give you double. And that’s what has really happened to me. When I have helped other people who are in need, God has helped me more.

A tear dries quickly when it is shed for troubles of others.

That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.

Giving is better than receiving because giving starts the receiving process.

It’s that wonderful old-fashioned idea that others come first and you come second. This was the whole ethic by which I was brought up. Others matter more than you do, so ‚don’t fuss, dear; get on with it.‘

I’m always attracted to people who interest me. They’ve got to be people who are really true to themselves somehow, and who are always trying to do something that makes their life more interesting, or better, or something for somebody else. They’re interested in people.

I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn’t touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.

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

The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.

There’s a lack of people in power that are motivated by the idea of helping people.

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.

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Real living is living for others.

Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.

Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. For remember, you don’t live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too.

Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.

A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.

Do something for somebody everyday for which you do not get paid.

A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.

Whoever is spared personal pain must feel himself called to help in diminishing the pain of others. We must all carry our share of the misery which lies upon the world.

An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.

You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.

He that does good to another does good also to himself.

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.

The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.