William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes

When you share your last crust of bread with a beggar, you mustn't behave as if you were throwing a bone to a dog. You must give humbly, and thank him for allowing you to have a part in his hunger.

Many men are contemptuous of riches; few can give them away.

My mother, we were a very poor family. When I was a kid, we would be in our little room, and there would be a knock on the door almost every night with a hobo begging for food. Even though we didn't even have enough to eat, my mother always found something to give them.

We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth

There is nothing remotely dignified about sorting through rotting trash to find something to feed your child, or asking someone for money because you have none (anyone who has contrived to give people money before they had to ask will never forget the look of gratitude in their eyes).

Have a great compassion for people. To be able to have a heart full of compassion, we need to pray. Especially be kind, be loving to the poor. We think we do so much for the poor, but it is they who make us rich. We are in debt to them. Do you want to do something beautiful for God? There is a person who needs you. This is your chance.

Beggars should be no choosers.

If our poor die of hunger, it is not because God does not care for them. Rather, it is because neither you nor I are generous enough. It is because we are not instruments of love in the hands of God. We do not recognize Christ when once again He appears to us in the hungry man, in the lonely woman, in the child who is looking for a place to get warm.

No one perfectly loves God who does not perfectly love some of his creatures.

The world does not have time to be with the poor, to learn with the poor, to listen to the poor. To listen to the poor is an exercise of great discipline, but such listening surely is what is required if charity is not to become a hatred of the poor for being poor.

The beloved of the Almighty are: the rich who have the humility of the poor, and the poor who have the magnanimity of the rich.

Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.

I love going to Africa and stuff. I love going anywhere, really, but I've been to Africa a bunch of times and it's just a beautiful place that needs help, obviously, but helping people that are really thankful is really easy to do. And the people out there always seem so thankful.

For all of my fortune, there are many with misfortune that need a hand.

I, for one, am profoundly grateful to feel the hand of God at work in my life. But at the beginning and end of the day, when my default setting is to show kindness and love to others, I never regret it. And to me, that is what faith is all about.

When you pray for anyone you tend to modify your personal attitude toward him.

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.

I run a bunch of charities and I say this line to people: 'I am somebody who has always been helped.' A little thing like that can make people believe it.

Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.

Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it.

We're raising our girls to understand the real meaning of Christmas, and to know that it's most important to have Christmas in your heart. We go to our local mall and donate toys, and we say prayers for all the people in the world who might not be as lucky as we are.

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

I'm from the bottom, I understand what it's like to have and to not have. My perception on giving is to put yourself in those people's shoes and go from there. So that's what I did.

Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.

I believe in prayer. I believe in gratitude and serving people.