John Paul Jones Quotes

The American way is to not need help, but to help.

The one woman who never gives herself is your free woman, who is always giving herself.

A voluntary deed is infinitely more precious to our national ideas and spirit than a thousandfold poured from the treasury.

It is an adherent condition of human affairs that no intention, however sincere, of protecting the interests of others, can make it safe or salutary to tie up their own hands.

I am a man who has made a great deal of money, and I haven't got a great deal. This is because I give it no value, and a certain Christian precept is something to be lived by, and so forth.

It is more blessed to give than to receive, but then it is also more blessed to be able to do without than to have to have.

The Quaker upbringing was not strict, but it was frugal. Extremely frugal. One was always encouraged to give away one's worldly goods.

Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.

I'm in the lucky position that I can help a huge amount of people. It's a great privilege and freedom to have.

Be charitable before wealth makes you covetous.

I'd rather have happiness than money. People ask for it. Sometimes when I don't have it. I make other people's problems my problem because they want me to; they ask me to.

Generosity is nothing else than a craze to possess. All which I abandon, all which I give, I enjoy in a higher manner through the fact that I give it away. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives.

Virtues, like viruses, have their seasons of contagion. When catastrophe strikes, generosity spikes like a fever. Courage spreads in the face of tyranny.

The world says you gain your life by getting more and more and more and more, but Jesus says, 'No, that leads to death. You get it back by giving it away and when you give it away you get it back.'

To be compassionate is not a joke. It's not that simple. One has to discover a certain bigness in oneself. That bigness should be centered on oneself, not in terms of money, not in terms of power you wield, not in terms of any status that you can command in the society, but it should be centered on oneself.

I always thought of my work as being animated by a spirit of unhinged generosity.

Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

It is in spending oneself that one becomes rich.

I have never been a material girl. My father always told me never to love anything that cannot love you back.

You shouldn't be greedy. You should feel good about yourself and not be greedy of what other people have.

The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish.

America needs young people to be inspired to choose sacrifice over greed.

I used to think that if I had success I would have freedom. But I have less freedom now than I've ever had. And what gives me satisfaction is not the jewelry and not the cars. What gives me satisfaction is doing things for others, like children.

There's something about the openness of the American people. Yes, we have our faults, but deep down, there's a goodness. America doesn't want to take over the world; in many ways, we don't want to be bothered by the rest of the world.

I want some colleague to be free to come help me when I say the time has come. That's what I'm fighting for, me. Now that sounds selfish. And if it helps somebody else, so be it.