Samaritans Quotes

• A Good Samaritan is not simply one whose heart is touched in an immediate act of care and charity, but one who provides a system of sustained care.

  James A. Forbes

  Heart, Charity, Care

  51 Copy quote

• Like the Good Samaritan, may we not be ashamed of touching the wounds of those who suffer, but try to heal them with concrete acts of love.

  Pope Francis

  Touching, Suffering, Trying

  63 Copy quote

• The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspiring, Leadership, Peace

  136 Copy quote

• It is at times such as this that we show our true spirit of giving and of brotherhood - of revealing the good Samaritan in all of us.

  Jo Bonner

  Giving, Brotherhood, Spirit

  15 Copy quote

• If we see someone who needs help, do we stop? There is so much suffering and poverty, and a great need for good Samaritans.

  Pope Francis

  Suffering, Needs, Poverty

  36 Copy quote

• No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  Television interview, 6 Jan. 1986, in The Times 12 Jan. 1986

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• Christian love is loving without counting the cost. This is the lesson of the Good Samaritan; this is the lesson of Jesus.

  Pope Francis

  Christian, Jesus, Love Is

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• We instinctively tend to limit for whom we exert ourselves. We do it for people like us, and for people whom we like. Jesus will have none of that. By depicting a Samaritan helping a Jew, Jesus could not have found a more forceful way to say that anyone at all in need - regardless of race, politics, class, and religion - is your neighbour. Not everyone is your brother or sister in faith, but everyone is your neighbour, and you must love your neighbour.

  Timothy Keller

  Jesus, Brother, Race

  Timothy Keller (2010). “Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just”, p.48, Penguin

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• True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Life, Compassion

  Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

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• In the story of the good Samaritan, Jesus not only teaches us to help people in need; more deeply, he teaches us that we cannot identify who “has it”, who is “in” with God, who is “blessed”, by looking at exteriors of any sort. That is a matter of the heart. There alone the kingdom of the heavens and human kingdoms great and small are knit together. Draw any cultural or social line you wish, and God will find his way beyond it.

  Dallas Willard

  Jesus, Blessed, Heart

  25 Copy quote

• I admire the good samaritan, but I don't want to be one.I don't want to spend my life picking up people by the side of the road after they have been beaten up and robbed.I want to change the Jericho road, so that everybody has an opportunity for a job, education, security, health.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Jobs, Opportunity, People

  142 Copy quote

• And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Hurt, Men, Order

  I've Been to the Mountaintop, delivered 3 April 1968, Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters), Memphis, Tennessee

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• True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Compassion, People, Needs

  118 Copy quote

• Psychologists tested the story of the Good Samaritan. What they learned gives us reason to pause. The greatest determinant of who stopped to help the stranger in need was not compassion, morality, or religious creed. It was those who had the time. Makes me wonder if I have time to do good.

  Richard Paul Evans

  Religious, Compassion, Giving

  Richard Paul Evans (2012). “Miles to Go: The Second Journal of the Walk Series”, p.47, Simon and Schuster

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• Justice goes across racial and economic barriers - like the good Samaritan.

  John M. Perkins

  Justice, Economic, Barriers

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• The Samaritan woman grasped what He said with fervor that came from an awareness of her real need. The transaction was fascinating. She has come with a buket. He sent her back with a spring of living water. She had come as a reject. He sent her back being accepted by God Himself. She came wounded. He sent her back whole. She came laden with questions. He sent her back as a source for answers. She came living a life of quiet desperation. She ran back overflowing with hope. The disciples missed it all. It was lunchtime for them.

  Ravi Zacharias

  Spring, Real, Water

  74 Copy quote

• He knows of our anguish, and He is there for us. Like the Good Samaritan in His parable, when He finds us wounded at the wayside, He binds up our wounds and cares for us (see Luke 10:34). Brothers and sisters, the healing power of His Atonement is for you, for us, for all.

  Sheri L. Dew

  Brother, Adversity, Healing

  11 Copy quote

• You find people ready enough to do the Samaritan, without the oil and twopence.

  Sydney Smith

  Oil, People, Charity

  Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed., by John Bartlett, Volume I, (p. 261), 1919.

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• On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. "A Time to Break Silence," at Riverside Church

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Journey, Men, Compassion

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.119, Beacon Press

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• I have always believed that the Good Samaritan went across the road to the wounded man just because he wanted to.

  Wilfred Grenfell

  Men, Missionary, Christianity

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• Jesus disclosed that God is compassionate. Jesus spoke of God that way: "Be compassionate, as God is compassionate." Compassion is the primary quality of the central figures in two of his most famous parables: the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. And Jesus himself, as a manifestation of the sacred, is often spoken of as embodying compassion.

  Marcus Borg

  Jesus, Father, Son

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• Each day millions of children arrive in American classrooms in search of more than reading and math skills. They are looking for a light in the darkness of their lives, a Good Samaritan who will stop and bandage a bruised heart or ego.

  Jim Trelease

  Children, Reading, Heart

  20 Copy quote

• Hell is paved with good samaritans.

  William Holden

  Witty, Powerful, Humorous

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• Being missionaries means loving God with all one's heart, even to the point, if necessary, of dying for him... Being missionaries means stooping down to the needs of all, like the Good Samaritan, especially those of the poorest and most destitute people.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Heart, Mean, People

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• Christ said "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" and when asked "who is thy neighbour? went on to the parable of the Good Samaritan. If you wish to understand this parable as it was understood by his hearers, you should substitute "Germans and Japanese" for Samaritan. I fear my modern day Christians would resent such a substitution, because it would compel them to realize how far they have departed from the teachings of the founder of their religion.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christian, Teaching, Departed

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