Reflections

Money is like manure; it’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around encouraging young things to grow.
   – THORNTON WILDER from “The Matchmaker”

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
   – WINSTON CHURCHILL

Anticipate charity by preventing poverty; assist the reduced fellow man, either by a considerable gift or a sum of money or by teaching him a trade or by putting him in the way of business so that he may earn an honest livelihood and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity. This is the highest step and summit of charity’s golden ladder.
   – MAIMONIDES

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.
   – MAYA ANGELOU

Giving presents is a talent; to know what a person wants, to know when and how to get it, to give it lovingly and well. Unless a character possesses this talent there is no moment more annihilating to ease than that in which a present is received and given.
   – PAMELA GLENCONNER

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
   – HH THE DALAI LAMA

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.
   – JAMES M. BARRIE

Deeds of kindness are equal in weight to all the commandments.
   – TALMUD

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life — happiness, freedom, and peace of mind — are always attained by giving them to someone else.
   – PEYTON CONWAY MARCH

Think of giving not as a duty but as a privilege.
   – JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER JR.

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

No one has ever become poor by giving.
   – ANNE FRANK

When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.
  
– ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL:

Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.
   – BARBARA DE ANGELIS

Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.
   – GOETHE

Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.
   – MOTHER TERESA

When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.
   – HH THE DALAI LAMA

When you carry out acts of kindness you get a wonderful feeling inside. It is as though something inside your body responds and says, yes, this is how I ought to feel.
   – HAROLD KUSHNER

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.
   – HENRY JAMES
 
Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
   – ALBERT SCHWEITZER
If you have money, consider that perhaps the only reason God allowed it to fall into your hands was in order that you might find joy and perfection by giving it all away. —  It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as God’s will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent. But if you want them to believe you-try to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as God’s will yourself!
   – THOMAS MERTON