Only the dead stay seventeen forever.
Haruki MurakamiRead
Charity is that with which no man is lost, and without which no man is saved.
Interpretation
Charity is essential for both personal salvation and the well-being of others.
This quote emphasizes the importance of charity in human existence. It suggests that through charitable acts, individuals can find purpose and salvation, while those without charity may be lost or fail to achieve a meaningful connection with others. The dual nature of charity highlights its critical role in both the giver's and the receiver's lives.
In practice
During a speech on philanthropy at a charity gala.
Only the dead stay seventeen forever.
People like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.
And so everything I see in this world, it all moves backward and forward at the same time, like a black-smith's bellows, like everything in my press, turning into its opposite at the command of the red and green buttons, and that's what makes the world go round.
What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?
You may feel overwhelmed by your own poverty and the labors of the day. But if you decide not to wait until you have more strength and more money, and if you pray for the Holy Spirit as you go, you will, when you arrive, know what to do and how to help someone even poorer than you are.
Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.
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