Quotes on Giving

If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead.

When I was young and very green, I worte that tune, Sister Kate, and someone said that's fine, let me publish it for you. I'll give you fifty dollars. I didn't know nothing about papers, and business, and I sold it outright.

You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants.

The summit of pleasure is the elimination of all that gives pain.

If I start giving people what they like I'll turn into one of them and I don't want to be one of them I want to be one of me.

There is a silence that matches our best possibilities when we have learned to listen to others. We can master the art of being quiet in order to be able to hear clearly what others are saying. . . . We need to cut off the garbled static of our own preoccupations to give to people who want our quiet attention.

I much prefer working with kids whose life could be completely upended by a reading of a book over a weekend. You give them a book to read - they go home and come back a changed person. And that is so much more interesting and exciting.

It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.

The passions seldom give good advice but to the interested and mercenary. Resentment generally suggests bad measures. Second thoughts and good nature will rarely, very rarely, approve the first hints of anger.

We do not have a fear of the unknown. What we fear is giving up the known.

Faith is in the soul. Belief is thought. Faith is so rich. Faith gives me my spiritual self.

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.

To have and not to give is often worse than to steal.

A champion is simply someone who did not give up when he wanted to.

I consider not what Parmenio should receive, but what Alexander should give.

Stop looking for peace. Give yourselves where you are. Stop looking at yourselves, look instead at your brothers and sisters in need. Ask how you can better love your brothers and sisters. Then you will find peace.

At every moment in our lives we need compassion, but what more urgent moment could there be than when we are dying? What more wonderful and consoling gift could you give to dying people than the knowledge that they are being prayed for, and that you are taking on their suffering and purifying their negative karma through your practice for them?

The key to U.N. reform is giving Americans a clearer picture of what the U.N. is and what it isn't, what it can be and what it can't be.

The rich man is not one who is in possession of much, but one who gives much.

If a witch needs something, another witch will give it to her. If there is war to be fought, we don't consider cost one of the factors in deciding whether or not it is right to fight. Nor do we have any notion of honor. An insult to a bear is a deadly thing. To us...inconceivable. How could you insult a witch? What would it matter if you did?

I try to take what voice I have and I give it to those who don’t have one at all.