Quotes About Giving

India's connection with philanthropy didn't begin with western influences. The connection with philanthropy is age-old and ingrained in our value systems.

The table is a meeting place, a gathering ground, the source of sustenance and nourishment, festivity, safety, and satisfaction. A person cooking is a person giving: Even the simplest food is a gift.

Success is finding satisfaction in giving a little more than you take.

It's joyful to give. But for people who want to take advantage of you, you're kind of an easy mark.

Because I'm just a giving person spiritually, I feel that if your intentions are to use or abuse or take advantage of, then you might get what you get in the meantime, but there's still a price to pay.

I like to live well and I feel good about it because I know how much we give back. There's plenty for my family, now let's take care of the rest.

Philanthropy is natural. For a mother, taking care of her children is natural. If I am rich, I take care of the poor, like a mother would.

You can't take care of charity unless you take care of yourself first.

I give to panhandlers on occasion, especially around the holidays, but have always been involved with charity, which was an important part of the way I was brought up. My siblings and I knew early on in life that we were incredibly fortunate and have never taken that for granted, so we recognize the importance of giving back.

We are givers, not takers.

I don't like people who are just takers.

Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself.

Giving is good, but taking is bad and brings death.

I already do some charity, but I don't necessarily talk about it. That doesn't mean I don't do it.

My message is that giving is very important. Giving is a Jewish thing, and I like to talk about that. There's nothing more important, personally, for anybody than being able to give.

God's ownership of everything also changes the kind of question we ask in giving. Rather than, "How much of my money should I give to God?" we learn to ask, "How much of God's money should I keep for myself?" The difference between these two questions is of monumental proportions.

The truth is that there are no "masters" in the spiritual life. Mature and wise teachers, yes. But fundamentally we are all beginners receiving and giving on our knees before God and with open hands before one another. In this business no one "lords it over" another. Pay

As Foster writes, "If our spiritual vitality seems low, if Bible study produces only dusty words, if prayer seems hollow and empty, then perhaps a prescription of lavish and joyful giving is just what we need."5

I see the people that do the real work, and what in a way is really sad is that the people that are often the most giving, hardworking, and capable of making this world better don't really have the ambition and ego to be a leader—they don't see any interest in the rewards, they don't care if their names ever appear in the press, they actually enjoy the process of helping others, they are truly in the moment.

If God is love, if God is gift given eternally, then our participation in the life of God happens not by escaping our everyday world, but by entering more deeply into the life of love and that paradoxical logic of gift in that we receive most richly only when we make "gifting" others a way of life.

This God disrupts the familiarity of the story by interrupting the sacrifice. Picture an early audience gasping. What? This God stopped the sacrifice? The gods don't do that! Second, the God in this story provides. Worship and sacrifice was about you giving to the gods. This story is about this God giving to Abraham. A God who does the giving? A God who does the providing?

Giving the gift is reward enough. That's where the life is. That's where the joy is.

Charity begins at home.

There is nothing in your budget for joy. No books, no flowers, no music, not even a cold beer. And there is nothing in your budget to give away to someone else. We don't help people who don't have better values than you do.