Quotes About Selflessness

I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other men's good, content with my harm.

You never say a word of yourself, dear Lady Grey. You have that dreadful sin of anti-egotism.

Surely the shortest commencement address in history - and for me one of the most memorable - was that of Dr. Harold E. Hyde, President of New Hampshire's Plymouth State College. He reduced his message to the graduating class to these three ideals: 'Know yourself- Socrates. Control yourself- Cicero; Give yourself - Christ.'

Do you wish men to speak well of you? Then never speak well of yourself.

Trying to do good to people without God's help is no easier than making the sun shine at midnight. You discover that you've got to abandon all your own preferences, your own bright ideas, and guide souls along the road our Lord has marked out for them. You mustn't coerce them into some path of your own choosing.

If of thy mortal goods thoU art bereft, And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left, Sell one, and with the dole Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

Hatred is a passion requiring one hundred times the energy of love. Keep it for a cause, not an individual. Keep it for intolerance, injustice, stupidity. For hatred is the strength of the sensitive. Its power and its greatness depend on the selflessness of its use.

Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Teach us to give and not to count the cost.

When thou doest alms, do not let thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.

Why is it that when people have no capacity for private usefulness they should be so anxious to serve the public?

Take egotism out, and you would castrate the benefactor.

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

Generosity is the vanity of giving.

He that does good for good's sake seeks neither praise nor reward, though sure of both at last.

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

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

He who never sacrificed a present to a future good, or a personal to a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind speak of color.

To complain that life has no joys while there is a single creature whom we can relieve by our bounty, assist by our counsels or enliven by our presence, is... just as rational as to die of thirst with the cup in our hands.

We learn the inner secret of happiness when we learn to direct our inner drives, our interest, and our attention to something besides ourselves.

No one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

The most satisfying thing in life is to have been able to give a large part of oneself to others.

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, And in their pleasure takes joy, even as though t'were his own.