Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Philanthropy
Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas: this woman was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did.
Acts. IX. 36.
Gifts and alms are the expressions, not the essence, of this virtue.
Addison—The Guardian. No. 166.
He scorn’d his own, who felt another’s woe.
Campbell—Gertrude of Wyoming. Pt. I. St. 24.
Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
Gibbon—Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Ch. XLIX.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings but reliev’d their pain;
The long remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast.
Goldsmith—Deserted Village. L. 149.
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Goldsmith—Deserted Village. L. 161.
A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad
When he put on his clothes.
Goldsmith—Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send;
He gave to misery (all he had) a tear,
He gain’d from Heaven (’twas all he wish’d) a friend.
Gray—Elegy. The Epitaph.
Scatter plenty o’er a smiling land.
Gray—Elegy in a Country Churchyard. St. 16.
Steal the hog, and give the feet for alms.
Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
By Jove the stranger and the poor are sent,
And what to those we give, to Jove is lent.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. VI. L. 247. Pope’s trans.
It never was our guise
To slight the poor, or aught humane despise.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XIV. L. 65. Pope’s trans.
In every sorrowing soul I pour’d delight,
And poverty stood smiling in my sight.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XVII. L. 505. Pope’s trans.
Alas! for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun.
Oh! it was pitiful!
Near a whole city full,
Home had she none.
Hood—The Bridge of Sighs.
He is one of those wise philanthropists who, in a time of famine, would vote for nothing but a supply of toothpicks.
Douglas Jerrold—Douglas Jerrold’s Wit.
I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.
Job. XXIX. 15.
In Misery’s darkest caverns known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless Anguish pour’d his groan,
And lonely want retir’d to die.
Samuel Johnson—On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet. St. 5. In Boswell’s Life of Johnson. (1782). (“Useful care” reads “ready help” in first ed.)
Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress.
Lamb—Complaint of the Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis.
Help thi kynne, Crist bit (biddeth), for ther bygynneth charitie.
Langland—Piers Plowman. Passus. 18. L. 61.
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.
Lowell—The Vision of Sir Launfal. Pt. II. VIII.
Nec sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo.
He believed that he was born, not for himself, but for the whole world.
Lucan—Pharsalia. II. 383.
To pity distress is but human; to relieve it is Godlike.
Horace Mann—Lectures on Education. Lecture VI.
Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them.
Matthew. VI. 1.
When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.
Matthew. VI. 3.
Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,
Whose trembling limbs have brought him to your door.
Thos. Moss—The Beggar’s Petition.
The organized charity, scrimped and iced,
In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ.
John Boyle O’Reilly—In Bohemia.
Misero datur quodcunque, fortunæ datur.
Whatever we give to the wretched, we lend to fortune.
Seneca—Troades. 697.
For his bounty
There was no winter in’t; an autumn ’twas
That grew the more by reaping: his delights
Were dolphin-like.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 87.
For this relief, much thanks: ’tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 8.
A tear for pity and a hand
Open as day for melting charity.
Henry IV. Pt. II. Act IV. Sc. 4. L. 31.
Speak with me, pity me, open the door:
A beggar begs that never begg’d before.
Richard II. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 77.
’Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
But to support him after.
Timon of Athens. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 107.
You find people ready enough to do the Samaritan, without the oil and twopence.
Sydney Smith—Lady Holland’s Memoir. Vol. I. P. 261.
’Tis a little thing
To give a cup of water; yet its draught
Of cool refreshment, drain’d by fever’d lips,
May give a shock of pleasure to the frame
More exquisite than when nectarean juice
Renews the life of joy in happiest hours.
Thos. Noon Talfourd—Ion. Act I. Sc. 2.
Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco.
Being myself no stranger to suffering, I have learned to relieve the sufferings of others.
Vergil—Æneid. I. 630.
The poor must be wisely visited and liberally cared for, so that mendicity shall not be tempted into mendacity, nor want exasperated into crime.
Robert C. Winthrop—Yorktown Oration in 1881.