90 Great Charity Quotes To Inspire Generosity

Charity comes from the Latin noun 'caritas' derived from the adjective 'carus' meaning 'dear' but originally meaning 'Christian love of your fellow human beings'.

The use began to be applied to organizations that practice charity only by the late 18th Century. An idiom popularly associated with the term is 'Charity begins at home' meaning family members should be the first focus of a person's efforts before anyone else.

In America, post-thanksgiving they celebrate Giving Tuesday which was created with the purpose of providing the giving season with a kickstart to help the ones in need, and reminding people about holidays being more than just a means to commercialization and consumerism.

The celebrations include fundraising, assistance to local hospitals, blood drives, and local pantries, helping children buy books, helping animal shelters, and providing food to the less fortunate.

There are however no hard and fast rules to celebrate this day, all that matters is for you to be generous to all.

One doesn't need to wait for a specific day or time to make one's contribution to their community, it can be done at any time and anywhere, what matters is the person's intent and motivation. Charity done is a reason for happiness whether done financially, physically, or by any other means.

The joy it brings to be generous and practice charity is inexplicable.

In this article, we will take a look at some inspirational quotes on and about charity from various books, speakers and world leaders, and people belonging to different walks of life. If you love this article, visit and read caregiver quotes and generosity quotes.

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Inspirational Charity Quotes

Here are some inspirational quotes on charity from eminent famous personalities leaders, philosophers, and others on charity.

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

-Mahatma Gandhi

2."Be the change you want to see in the world."

-Mahatma Gandhi

3."Gentleness, self-sacrifice, and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion."

-Mahatma Gandhi

4."I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy."

-Rabindranath Tagore

5."The greatest sin is to do nothing because you can only do a little."

-Edmund Burke

6."We can do no great things, only small things with great love."

-Mother Teresa  

7."We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."

-Mother Teresa

8."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

9."We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

-Winston Churchill

10."As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled."

-Victor Hugo

11."That's what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing."

-Simone De Beauvoir

12."The living need charity more than the dead."

-George Arnold, 'The Jolly Old Pedagogue'

13."Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,  nothing is going to get better."

-Dr. Seuss, 'The Lorax'

14."Extend yourself in kindness to other human beings wherever you can."

-Oprah Winfrey

15."Anywhere I see suffering, that is where I want to be, doing what I can."

-Princess Diana

16."Nothing brings me more happiness than trying to help the most vulnerable people in society...Whoever is in distress can call on me. I will come running wherever they are."

-Princess Diana

17."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  

18."Charity begins at home but should not end there."

-Thomas Fuller

19."We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone."

-Ronald Reagan

20."He who waits to a great deal of good at once will never do anything."

-Samuel Johnson

21."In necessary thing, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity."

-Anne Baxter

22."The practice of charity will bind us...will bind all men in one great brotherhood."

-Conrad Hilton

23."Never let your zeal outrun your charity. The former is human, The latter is divine."

-Hosea Ballou  

24."Find a need and fill it."

-Ruth Stafford Peale  

25."Flatter not thyself in thy faith in God if thou hast not charity for thy neighbor."

-Francis Quarles

26."All things are perceived in the light of charity and hence under the aspect of beauty; for beauty is simply reality seen with the eyes of love."

-Evelyn Underhill

27."My piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share and that no one starves while I eat."

-Leo Tolstoy, 'What Tolstoy Taught'  

28."As water collected in a tank gets pure by filtration so accumulated wealth is preserved by being employed in charity."

-Chanakya

29."Charity is great but the moment you say it is all, you run the risk of running into materialism."

-Swami Vivekananda

30."Our prayers for others flow more easily than those for ourselves. this shows that we are made to live by charity."

-C.S.Lewis

Charity Quotes From Books

Books are a source of enlightenment. Take a look at these words about charity from books, renowned authors, as well as a few Bible quotes about charity. These charity quotes will surely inspire you to do something for your community.

31."But give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you."

-Luke 11: 41, 'The Holy Bible'

32."Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you."

-Matthew 5: 42, 'The Holy Bible'

33."Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

-Hebrews 13: 16, 'The Holy Bible'

34."Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."

-2 Corinthians 9:7, 'The Holy Bible'  

35."Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely, who conduct their affairs with justice."

- Psalm 112:5, 'The Holy Bible'

36."God has given us two hands, one to receive and the other to give with."

-Billy Graham

37."Is there any real purpose in being alive if all we are going to do is get up every day and only live for ourselves? Live your life to help others. Give and live selflessly."

-Joyce Meyer

38."Charity is the root of all good works."

-Saint Augustine

39."Even  charity (so-called) has lent its patronage against little children."

-Benjamin Waugh, 'Some Conditions Of Child Life In England'

40."In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, not a charity, that I am pleading for."

-Tomas Paine, 'The Writings Of Tomas Paine, Volume III'  

41."When justice is done, the mission of charity is finished."

-Milan C. Edson, 'Solaris Farm'

42."While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary."

-Chinua Achebe, 'Anthills of The Savannah

43."You have a moral responsibility when you've been given far more than you need, to do wise things with it and give intelligibly."

-J.K.Rowling

44."It is justice, not charity that is wanting in the world."

-Mary Wollstonecraft, 'A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women'

45."Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste."

-Charlotte Bronte

46."Having leveled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home."

-Emily Bronte

47."Charity is...a universal remedy against discord. And a holy cement for mankind."

-William Penn, 'The Selected Works Of William Penn'

48."Whatsoever is done in charity, however small and of no reputation, it be, bringeth forth good fruit."

-Thoman A Kempis, 'The Confessions of St Augustine, including the imitation of Christ'

49."In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow-men, not knowing what they do."

-John Quincy Adams, 'Letter To Bronson Alcott'  

50."An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

-Martin Luther King, Jr., 'The Measure Of A Man'

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

-Kahlil Gibran, 'The Prophet'  

52."The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life."

-Henry Ford, 'My Life And Work: Top Biography'

53."Where charity keeps pace with gain, industry is blessed."

-William Penn, 'The Selected Works Of William Penn'

54."Where the mind is biggest the heart, the senses, magnanimity, charity, tolerance, kindliness and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe."

-Virginia Woolf, 'Selected Works Of Virginia Woolf'

55."Whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their for their sustenance."

-Tomas Aquinas, 'Aquinas Selected Political Writings'  

56."The vicious count their years; virtuous, their acts."

-Samuel Johnson, 'Dictionary Of English Language (Complete And Unabridged)'

57."Charity and treating begin at home."

-John Fletcher, 'Wit Without Money'

58."Charity creates a multitude of sins."

-Oscar Wilde, 'The Soul Of Man Under Socialism'

59."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, 'Rule Of Conduct In Letters'

60."No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another."

-Charles Dickens, 'Our Mutual Friend'

Quotes About Giving to Charity

Here are some charity quotes about being generous, spreading love to oneself, our loved ones, neighbors, community, and others who might not be as privileged as us. These words about giving and love will make you see good in the world.    

61."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

62."I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

-Maya Angelou

63."I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver."

-Maya Angelou

64."Part of being a person is about helping others."

-Regis Murayi

65."How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

-Anne Frank

66."No one has ever become poor by giving."

-Anne Frank

67."The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves."

-Helen Keller

68."Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

-Margaret Mead

69."A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is bone shared with the dog when you are just as hungry as the dog."  

-Jack London

70."I clear my wardrobe of anything I'm not wearing and give the clothes to charity."

-Domenico Dolce  

71."In charity, there is no excess."

-Francis Bacon

72."Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful, and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing room."

-Friedrich Nietzche  

73."If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must be by what he gives."

-Robert South

74."Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves."

-Horace Mann

75."Everyone can be great because everyone can serve."

-Martin Luther King, Jr

76."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

77."I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."

-Abraham Lincoln

78."What's important for my daughter to know is that...if you are fortunate to have opportunity, it is your duty, to make sure other people have those opportunities as well."

-Kamala Harris

79."What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead."

-Nelson Mandela  

80."Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. it is an act of justice."

-Nelson Mandela

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

-Muhammad Ali

82."It is more rewarding to watch money change the world than to watch it accumulate."

-Gloria Steinem

83."If you haven't got charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble."

-Bob Hope

84."The charity that is a trifle to us can be precious to others."

-Homer

85."What do we live for, if not to make lives less difficult for each other?"

-George Eliot

86."One must be poor to know the luxury of giving."

-George Eliot

87."The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him."

-Voltaire

88."Every good act is charity. A man's true wealth hereafter is the good that he does in this world to his fellows."

-Moliere

89."A charitable man is like an apple tree-he gives his fruit and is silent; the philanthropist is like the successful hen."

-Austin O' Malley

90."He who gives early gives twice."

-Miguel de Cervantes

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotesfor everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for charity quotes then why not take a look at be nice quotes, or equality quotes.