"Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world."

—Desmond Tutu

"As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do."

—Andrew Carnegie

"Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom."

—George Washinton Carver

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

—Francis Bacon

"Don’t just think, do."

—Horace

"The best philanthropy is constantly in search of the finalities—a search for a cause, an attempt to cure evils at their source."

—John Rockefeller

"The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve."

—Albert Schweitzer

"Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant."

—Robert Louis Stevenson

"Where there is no vision, there is no hope."

—Booker T. Washington

"It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. This is where our love for each other must start."

—Mother Teresa

"A man of humanity is one who...desiring attainment for himself, helps others to attain."

—Confucius

"Life’s persistent and most urgent question is “What are you doing for others?”"

—Martin Luther King Jr.

"Remember, you don’t live in a world all your own."

—Albert Schweitzer

"A certain amount of corporate philanthropy is simply good business and works for the long–term benefit of the investors."

—John Mackey

"When wealth is centralized, the people are dispersed. When wealth is distributed, the people are brought together."

—Confucius

"The most useful and influential people in America are those who take the deepest interest in institutions that exist for the purpose of making the world better."

—Booker T. Washington

"Think of giving not only as a duty but as a privilege."

— John Rockefeller

"One person can make a difference, and everyone should try."

—John F. Kennedy

"I absolutely believe in the power of tithing. My own experience is that the more I give away, the more that comes back. That is the way life works."

—Ken Blanchard

"Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present."

—Albert Camus

"No one has ever become poor by giving."

—Anne Frank

"I was trained from the beginning to work, to save, and to give."

—John Rockefeller Jr.

"Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven."

—Henry Ward Beecher

"It is more blessed to give than to receive."

—Acts 20:35

"Charity is a supreme virtue, and the great channel through which the mercy of God is passed on to mankind. It is the virtue that unites men and inspires their noblest efforts."

—Conrad Hilton

"Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another."

—George Eliot

"It is in giving that we receive."

—Francis of Assisi

"That best portion of a good man’s life: His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love."

—William Wordsworth

"The proper aim of giving is to put the recipients in a state where they no longer need our gifts."

—C. S. Lewis

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Most people think that Americans are generous because we are rich. The truth is that we are rich, in significant part, because we are generous."

—Claire Gaudiani

"No one need wait a single moment to improve the world."

—Anne Frank

"No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions—he had money as well."

—Margaret Thatcher

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

—Mother Teresa

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

—Winston Churchill

"Donors represent a private version of the legislative process–a deliberative process that selects goals, sets values, and allocates resources.... an alternative vehicle for getting things done."

—Paul Ylvisaker

"It’s better to tell your money where to go than to ask where it went."

—Farmer’s Gazette

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

—Margaret Mead

"If you combine all the spectral rays into a single beam, you get white light; and if you combine all the virtues into a single beam you get charity."

—Austin O’Malley

"If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else."

—Confucius

"Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully."

—St. Paul

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."

—Aesop

"It is prodigious the quantity of good that may be done by one man, if he will make a business of it."

—Benjamin Franklin

"Every man goes down to his death bearing in his hands only that which he has given away."

—Persian proverb

"The charitable give out the door and God puts it back through the window."

—Traditional proverb

"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else."

—Booker T. Washington

"The true friend of the people should see that they be not too poor, for extreme poverty lowers the character of the democracy."

—Aristotle

"The world is moving so fast these days that the one who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it."

—Harry Emerson Fosdick

"I can testify that it is nearly always easier to make $1,000,000 honestly than to dispose of it wisely."

—Julius Rosenwald

"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 you ever can."

—John Wesley

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

—Charles Dickens

"I believe the power to make money is a gift from God...to be developed and used to the best of our ability for the good of mankind."

—John Rockefeller

"The foundation is an instrument forged by citizens who transfer profit from the commercial sector and put it directly to work as risk capital for the general betterment of the society."

—Richard Cornuelle

"It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich."

—Sarah Bernhardt

"Any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."

—Mahatma Gandhi

"It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than to earn it in the first place."

—Andrew Carnegie

"The best philanthropy is not just about giving money but giving leadership. The best philanthropists bring the gifts that made them successful—the drive, the determination, the refusal to accept that something can’t be done if it needs to be—into their philanthropy."

—Tony Blair

"Benevolence today has become altogether too huge an undertaking to be conducted otherwise than on business lines."

—Julius Rosenwald

"Never respect men merely for their riches, but rather for their philanthropy; we do not value the sun for its height, but for its use."

—Gamaliel Bailey

"My theme for philanthropy is the same approach I used with technology: to find a need and fill it."

—An Wang

"If you want to feel proud of yourself, you’ve got to do things you can be proud of."

—Oseola McCarty

"The political maturity of a country is measured by what citizens willingly do for themselves and one another."

—Frank Prochaska

"A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle."

—Benjamin Franklin

"Don’t just think, do."

—Horace

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

—William Penn

"Many people are alienated by faceless bureaucracy and what they see as an erosion of participatory democracy. Consequently, there has been a revival of interest in charitable service."

—Frank Prochaska

"The man who dies rich dies disgraced."

—Andrew Carnegie

"The spirit of community will be revived as we succeed in devising ways to reinvolve people in solving the perplexing problems they see about them, not just in talking about them, and certainly not in petitioning government to solve them."

—Richard Cornuelle

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

—Victor Hugo

"Not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare."

—James Russell Lowell

"Every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty."

—John Rockefeller Jr.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

—Theodore Roosevelt

"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."

—J. R. R. Tolkien

"Earlier in this century, philanthropy often flowed from the wills of dead industrialists. In recent decades, it’s as likely to have come from a very alive business leader."

—Michael Milken

"No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave."

—Calvin Coolidge

"Let him that hath done the good office conceal it; let him that received it disclose it."

—Seneca

"As the furnace purifies the silver, so does charity rid wealth of its dross."

—William Downey

"Leisure is time for doing something useful."

—Benjamin Franklin

"When the crumbs are swept from our table, we think it generous to let the dogs eat them; as if that were charity which permits others to have what we cannot keep."

—Henry Ward Beecher

"Charity is the note that resolves the discord."

—Austin O’Malley

"Nothing contributes more to make men polite and civilized, than true and genuine charity."

—Wellins Calcott

"Charity is a universal remedy against discord, and a holy cement for mankind."

—William Penn

"Community is a consequence. It results when people come together to accomplish things that are important to them and succeed. People who are uninvolved cannot feel this connection."

—Richard Cornuelle

"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"

—George Eliot

"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."

—Jack London

"When we do any good to others, we do as much, or more, good to ourselves."

—Benjamin Whichcote

"The value of a man resides in what he gives."

—Albert Einstein

"The highest use of capital is to make money do more for the betterment of life."

—Henry Ford

"The truth of the matter is: you can create a great legacy, and inspire others, by giving to philanthropic organizations."

—Michael Bloomberg

"As I give, I get."

—Mary McLeod Bethune

"The ultimate achievement is how you feel about yourself. And giving your wealth away to have an impact for good does help with that."

—Gerry Lenfest

"I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution."

—Andrew Carnegie

"Charity is the great channel through which the mercy of God is passed on to mankind. It is the virtue that unites men and inspires their noblest efforts."

—Conrad Hilton

"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."

—Helen Keller

"You take nothing with you that you gained—only what you gave away."

—Francis of Assisi

"The best recreation is to do good."

—William Penn

"Giving frees us from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others."

—Barbara Bush

"What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal."

—Albert Pine

"The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it."

—William James

"For scientific researchers, charitable donations are enormous engines of new opportunities, of starting in directions that wouldn’t have been possible to fund by conventional sources."

—Leroy Hood

"Help your brother’s boat across, and your own will reach the shore."

—Hindu proverb

"Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner."

—Warren Buffett

"I cannot think of a more personally rewarding and appropriate use of wealth than to give while one is living.... Interventions have greater value and impact today than if they are delayed."

—Charles Feeney

"There are eight levels of charity.... The highest is when you strengthen a man’s hand until he need no longer be dependent upon others."

—Maimonides

"If life happens to bless you with talent or treasure, you have a responsibility to use those gifts as well and as wisely as you possibly can."

—Bill and Melinda Gates

"Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."

—St. Paul

"A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses. If you are generous, you will gain everything."

—Confucius

"Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again."

—Ecclesiastes

"The best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."

—Benjamin Franklin

"What I did was help myself by learning to help others. You only keep what you have by giving it away."

—Sean MacMillen

"If you would help another man, you must do so in minute particulars."

—William Blake