Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Charity

• To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Life, Success

• A great man is always willing to be little.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Confidence, Spiritual, Integrity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Compensation and Self-Reliance”, p.23, Cosimo, Inc.

• Do not tell me of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Giving, Dollars

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.22, Coyote Canyon Press

• Give no bounties: make equal laws: secure life and prosperity and you need not give alms.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Law, Giving

• There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity i am bought and sold; for them i will go to prison, if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies; - though i confess with shame i sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar which by and by i shall have the manhood to withhold.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Spiritual, College, Class

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.12, Penguin

• At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Men, Doors

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.52, 谷月社

• Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Apology, Men, Wish

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “Essays: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.48, ReadHowYouWant.com

• Is all literature eavesdropping, and all art Chinese imitation? our life a custom, and our body borrowed, like a beggar’s dinner, from a hundred charities?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Chinese, Literature

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2612, Delphi Classics

• Why should all virtue work in one and the same way? Why should all give dollars? It is very inconvenient to us country folk, and we do not think any good will come of it. We have not dollars; merchants have; let them give them. Farmers will give corn; poets will sing; women will sew; laborers will lend a hand; the children will bring flowers.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Children, Flower

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.43, Penguin

• Philanthropies and charities have a certain air of quackery.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Air, Charity, Philanthropy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.203, Library of America

• I am not engaged to Christianity by decent forms, or saving ordinances; it is not usage, it is not what I do not understand, that binds me to it -- let these be the sandy foundations of falsehoods. What I revere and obey in it is its reality, its boundless charity, its deep interior life, the rest it gives to my mind, the echo it returns to my thoughts, the perfect accord it makes with my reason through all its representation of God and His Providence; and the persuasion and courage that come out thence to lead me upward and onward.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Reality, Echoes, Giving

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2907, Delphi Classics

• The river knows the way to the sea:
  Without a pilot it runs and falls,
  Blessing all lands with its charity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Fall, Blessing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.93, Delphi Classics

• For he that feeds men serveth few;
  He serves all who dares be true.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Men, Charity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert J. Von Frank (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Poetry”, p.96, Harvard University Press

• The worst of charity is that the lives you are asked to preserve are not worth preserving.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Charity, Philanthropy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.132, Harvard University Press

• It is a capital blunder; as you discover, when another man recites his charities.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Charity, Blunders

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.353, Рипол Классик

• To give money to a sufferer is only a come-off. It is only a postponement of the real payment, a bribe paid for silence, a creditsystem in which a paper promise to pay answers for the time instead of liquidation. We owe to man higher succors than food and fire. We owe to man.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Real, Men, Fire

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2442, Delphi Classics

• Love should make joy; but our benevolence is unhappy. Our Sunday-schools, and churches, and pauper-societies are yokes to the neck. We pain ourselves to please nobody.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Pain, School, Sunday

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.307, Library of America

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