Charity Quotes for Fundraising

These inspirational charity quotes are perfect for fundraising flyers, donation request letters and add a unique touch to fundraiser thank-you cards.

"You will find, as you look back on your life, that the moments that stand out are the moments when you have done things for others." ~ Henry Drummond

Inspirational Charity Quotes

"Down in their hearts, wise men know this truth: the only way to help yourself is to help others." ~ Elbert Hubbard


"If everyone howled at every injustice, every act of barbarism, every act of unkindness, then we would be taking the first step towards a real humanity." ~ Nelson DeMille


"When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world." ~ Author Unknown


"Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything." ~ Walt Whitman


"A good example has twice the value of good advice." ~ Author Unknown


"The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker." ~ Helen Keller


"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no person can sincerely try to help another without helping themselves." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


"Instead of counting your days, make your days count." ~ Author Unknown




"If you have no will to change it, you have no right to criticize it." ~ Author Unknown


"Charity begins at home, but should not end there." ~ Thomas Fuller


"Each of us can only do the best we can for as many as we can and that will never be good enough for those of us who care!" ~ Rea Cord


"Every good act is charity. A man's true wealth hereafter is the good that he does in this world to his fellows." ~ Moliere


"In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity." ~ Anne Baxter





"The charity that is a trifle to us can be precious to others." ~ Homer


"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." ~ Winston Churchill


"Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action." ~ Lowell


"Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance." ~ Francis of Assisi


"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~ Anne Frank


"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little." ~ Edmund Burke


"Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself." ~ Walt Whitman




More Inspirational Charity Quotes

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do." ~ Edward Everett Hale


"The willingness to share does not make one charitable; it makes one free." ~ Robert Brault


"While earning your daily bread, be sure you share a slice with those less fortunate." ~ Author Unknown


"I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again." ~ William Penn


"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth." ~ Mohammed Ali


"When you dig another out of their troubles, you find a place to bury your own." ~ Author Unknown


"When faith and hope fail, as they do sometimes, we must try charity, which is love in action. We must speculate no more on our duty, but simply do it. When we have done it, however blindly, perhaps Heaven will show us why." ~ Dinah Maria Mulock


"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." ~ Dr. Seuss


"The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service." ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


"I am very driven. I work really hard, whether it's acting or my charity or even poker. When I focus on something I give it my all." ~ Shannon Elizabeth


"Charity never humiliated him who profited from it, nor ever bound him by the chains of gratitude, since it was not to him but to God that the gift was made." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery


"Make it a rule... never to lie down at night without being able to say, "I have made one human being at least a little wiser, a little happier or a little better this day." ~ Charles Kingsley


"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice." ~ Old Indian Saying


"Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it." ~ John D. Rockefeller


"Our prayers for others flow more easily than those for ourselves. This shows we are made to live by charity." ~ C.S.Lewis


"A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity." ~ Ralph Nader


"Only great souls know the grandeur there is in charity." ~ Jacques Bossuet


"The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry man; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to the man who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the man who has none; the money which you hoard in the bank belongs to the poor. You do wrong to everyone you could help, but fail to help." ~ St. Basil the Great


"That's why charity work is very selfish at the same time, because it makes you feel good." ~ Maria Menounos


"Never let your zeal outrun your charity. The former is but human, the latter is divine." ~ Hosea Ballou


"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving individuals. We all must work for our own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity." ~ Marie Curie




Inspirational Charity Quotes

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." ~ Buddha


"Sometimes a man imagines that he will lose himself if he gives himself, and keep himself if he hides himself. But the contrary takes place with terrible exactitude." ~ Ernest Hello


"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you." ~ Mother Teresa


"In about the same degree as you are helpful, you will be happy." ~ Karl Reiland


"It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little - do what you can." ~ Sydney Smith


"The only genuine elite is the elite of those men and women who gave their lives to justice and charity." ~ Sargent Shriver


"The difference between a helping hand and an outstretched palm is a twist of the wrist."~ Laurence Leamer


"The faith must express itself in charity and in solidarity, which is the civil form of charity." ~ Claudio Hummes


"Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even." ~ Daniel Berrigan


"If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it." ~ Lucy Larcom


"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is every wasted." ~ Aesop


"To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, THIS is to have succeeded." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


"A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog." ~ Jack London


"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does." ~ William James


"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." ~ Margaret Mead


"Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee, and do not try to make the universe a blind alley." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


"Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable." ~ Charles Caleb Colton


"Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe." ~ Virginia Woolf


"In essentials, unity; in differences, liberty; in all things, charity." ~ Philipp Melanchthon


"The Lord loveth a cheerful giver. He also accepteth from a grouch." ~ Catherine Hall




Motivational Charity Quotes

"Unity in things Necessary, Liberty in things Unnecessary, and Charity in all." ~ Richard Baxter


"True charity is the desire to be useful to others with no thought of recompense." ~ Emanuel Swedenborg


"Everywhere you look, there is a charity or a project in school to get involved in. In eighth grade, there was this program called CJSF, California Junior Scholarship Foundation. We were involved in soup kitchens and toy drives, and your school can set up something like that. If your school doesn't have a program like that, set one up." ~ Lindsey Shaw


"Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light." ~ Norman B. Rice


"Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him." ~ Albert Schweitzer


"Cheerfulness is a very great help in fostering the virtue of charity. Cheerfulness itself is a virtue." ~ Lawrence G. Lovasik


"If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one." ~ Mother Teresa


"Look around the habitable world: how few know their own good, or knowing it, pursue." ~ Juvenal


"No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave" ~ Calvin Coolidge


"Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart." ~ Washington Irving


"The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all." ~ Leo Rosten


"No man stands so straight as when he stoops to help a boy." ~ Knights of Pythagoras


"It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference." ~ Tom Brokaw


"Things of the spirit differ from things material in that the more you give the more you have." ~ Christopher Morley


"Love never reasons but profusely gives; gives, like a thoughtless prodigal, its all, and trembles lest it has done too little." ~ Hannah More


"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catchers mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back." ~ Maya Angelou


"The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green." ~ Thomas Carlyle


"You can't lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself." ~ Gene Mauch


"Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.... You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.


"Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others." ~ Saint Augustine




Heartwarming Charity Quotes

"To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right." ~ Confucius


"I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do the something I can do." ~ Helen Keller


"Flatter not thyself in thy faith in God if thou hast not charity for thy neighbor." ~ Francis Quarles


"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit." ~ Nelson Henderson


"Do not commit the error, common among the young, of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind you have failed." ~ Jan de Hartog


"Nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something." ~ Author Unknown


"If you're an enthusiast and you love the world like I do, it comes naturally. But I think charity must become more fun to give, more interactive and imaginative." ~ Joanna Lumley


"God has not called us to see through each other, but to see each other through." ~ Author Unknown


"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.


"Don't be afraid of outgiving God. It is impossible to do that." ~ Charles R. Swindoll


"Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier." ~ Mother Teresa


"He who gives when he is asked has waited too long." ~ Sunshine Magazine


"Being good is commendable, but only when it is combined with doing good is it useful." ~ Author Unknown


"The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own." ~ Benjamin Disraeli


"Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one." ~ Nicholas Berdyaev


"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." ~ Horace Mann


"Keep hope alive" ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


"You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give." ~ Kahlil Gibran


"Improvement begins with I." ~ Arnold Glasow


"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." ~ Mahatma Gandhi


"In giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery


"A large heart can be filled with very little." ~ Antonio Porchia




Even More Charity Quotes

"If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it." ~ Anthony J. D'Angelo

"Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see." ~ Mark Twain


"Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand." ~ Emily Kimbrough


"Charity sees the need, not the cause." ~ German Proverb


"If all human lives depended upon their usefulness - as might be judged by certain standards - there would be a sudden and terrific mortality in the world." ~ Gene Tunney


"Every action in our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity." ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin


"There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love." ~ Mother Teresa


"How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world." ~ William Shakespeare


"One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!" ~ George Eliot


"He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help." ~ Abraham Lincoln


"If you haven't got any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble." ~ Bob Hope


"It's not that successful people are givers; it is that givers are successful people." ~ Patti Thor


"Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something." ~ Henry David Thoreau


"Find a need and fill it." ~ Ruth Stafford Peale


"To give up yourself without regret is the greatest charity." ~ Bodhidharma


"The vicious count their years; virtuous, their acts." ~ Samuel Johnson


"The deed is everything, the glory naught." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


"The great use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it." ~ William James


"I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world." ~ Mother Teresa


"The only gift is a portion of thyself." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


"A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog." ~ Jack London


"If I thought I was going to die tomorrow, I should nevertheless plant a tree today." ~ Stephan Girard


"If you have much, give of your wealth; if you have little, give of your heart." ~ Arabian Proverb


"The race advances only by the extra achievements of the individual. You are the individual." ~ Charles Towne


"Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do." ~ Kahlil Gibran


"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope... and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." ~ Robert F. Kennedy


"There are two ways of spreading light - to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." ~ Edith Wharton


"You may not have saved a lot of money in your life, but if you have saved a lot of heartaches for other folks, you are a pretty rich man." ~ Seth Parker


"Go the extra mile. It's never crowded." ~ Author Unknown


"Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots." ~ Frank A. Clark


"The most fundamental winning formula is to bet on human decency and be patient." ~ Robert Brault


"We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses." ~ C.G. Jung


"My piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat." ~ Leo Tolstoy


"There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb himself." ~ Andrew Carnegie


"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." ~ Thoreau, Walden


"There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self." ~ Aldous Huxley


"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person." ~ Mother Teresa




Unique Fundraising Ideas and More Charity Quotes:

List of Fundraising Ideas from A-Z
Appreciation Quotes
Quotes to Say Thank You
Gratitude Quotes
Teacher Appreciation Quotes
Fundraising Flyer Ideas
Fundraiser Flyers
Flyer Examples
Home Page


Return to Top of Page