Giving quotes
21.9K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside giving — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"The word realist means nothing to me, because I would subordinate reality to temperament. Give me what is true and I applaud; but give me what is individual and alive and I applaud even more."
"The greatest sin is appearing naive or old-fashioned so that somebody can give you a sort of a very cool arch smile and devastate you with one extraordinarily crafted line that puts kind of a hole in your pretentious balloon."
"How could I have not known about Ume? An Austin trio fronted by a whirling dervish of singer guitarist who in the standard PR band head shot looks like she wouldn't hurt a fly; yet give her a guitar, a Marshall stack and a mic and stand back, way back. She shreds. File under - Do Not Overlook and Go Tell Your Friends"
"The play is the source, it is orchestrated with words. In a movie, you are not dealing with as much as that. There are machines and wires. When you're acting for a camera, it keeps taking and never giving back."
"I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail, poisoned in the bushes, blown out on the trail; hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn, "Come in," she said, "I'll give ya shelter from the storm.""
"People's identities as Indians, as Asians, or as members of the human race, seemed to give way - quite suddenly - to sectarian identification with Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh communities."
"I feel more like I'm a person who has so much to offer in different capacities that it would be a danger for me not to give myself a chance to spread my wings in all different directions."
"Defeat I shall not know. It shall not touch me. I will meet it with true thinking. Resisting it will be my strengthening. But if, perchance, the day shall give to me the bitter cup, it shall sweeten in the drinking."
"You can only give away what you have inside. Become an instrument of love, invite love to accompany you 24/7. Give away love, and it has to come streaming into your life."
"I was never capable of being an average pupil. I would either seem refractory to any teaching and give the impression of being completely dumb or I would fling myself on my work with a frenzy, a patience, and a willingness to learn that astonished everybody. But to awaken my zeal, it was necessary to offer me something I liked. Once my appetite had been whetted, I became ravenously hungry."
"It is enough that one surrenders oneself. Surrender is giving oneself up to the original cause of one's being. Do not delude yourself by imagining this source to be some God outside you. One's source is within oneself. Give yourself up to it. That means that you should seek the source and merge in it."
"Surrender is to give oneself up to the original cause of one's being."
"The more one forgives himself - by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love - the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself."
"You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity."
"Everybody loves birdsong. It's a human need... the sound of birds gives a deep, if sometimes almost unnoticed, pleasure"
"There is something else which has the power to awaken us to the truth. It is the works of writers of genius. They give us, in the guise of fiction, something equivalent to the actual density of the real, that density which life offers us every day but which we are unable to grasp because we are amusing ourselves with lies."
"My mama couldn't give me what I wanted. I had all right clothes, but the people I was with had better clothes. I felt that I had to have better clothes."
"Pain reconciles one to existence. Infinite resignation is that shirt in the old fable. The thread is spun with tears, bleached by tears, the shirt sewn in tears, but then it also gives better protection than iron. The secret in life is that everyone must sew it for himself."
"When the trust is high, you get the trust dividend. Investors invest in brands people trust. Consumers buy more from companies they trust, they spend more with companies they trust, they recommend companies they trust, and they give companies they trust the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong."
"We read many books, but that does not bring us knowledge. We may read all the Bibles in the world, but that will not give us religion. Theoretical religion is easy enough to get, any one may get that. What we want is practical religion."
