Alms Quotes

If all alms were given only from pity, all beggars would have starved long ago.

The rich have no more of the kingdom of heaven than they have purchased of the poor by their alms.

Walking does good to the fat and giving alms does good to the sinners; these both make one feel lighter!

Beggars, especially noble beggars, should never show themselves in the street; they should ask for alms through the newspapers. It's still possible to love one's neighbor abstractly, and even occasionally from a distance, but hardly ever up close.

A woman who loves her husband is merely paying her bills. A woman who loves her lover gives alms to the poor.

All religions have honored the beggar. For he proves that in a matter at the same time as prosaic and holy, banal and regenerative as the giving of alms, intellect and morality, consistency and principles are miserably inadequate.

Tell me, when you give alms do you look into the eyes of the man or woman to whom you give alms? . . . And when you give alms, do you touch the hand of the one to whom you give alms, or do you toss the coin?

If you want God to hear your prayers, hear the voice of the poor. If you wish God to anticipate your wants, provide those of the needy without waiting for them to ask you. Especially anticipate the needs of those who are ashamed to beg. To make them ask for alms is to make them buy it.

He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, "To get practice in being refused."

If we should be saved and become saints, we ought always to stand at the gates of the Divine mercy to beg and pray for, as an alms, all that we need.

There are many poor men and poor women: set apart some one constantly to remain there: let the poor man be though but as a guard to thy house: let him be to thee wall and fence, shield and spear. Where alms are, the devil dares not approach, nor any other evil thing.

Have you been working on Sunday? Have you been buying or selling without necessity in the course of this holy day? Give to the poor some alms which will exceed the profit you have made.

For if you change from inhumanity to alms giving, you have stretched fourth the hand that was withered. If you withdraw from theaters and go to church, you have cured the lame foot. If you draw back your eyes from a harlot ... you have opened them when they were blind ... These are the greatest miracles.

Yes, my dear children, everything is good and precious in God's sight when we act from the motives of religion and of charity because Jesus Christ tells us that a glass of water would not go unrewarded. You see, therefore, my children, that although we may be quite poor, we can still easily give alms.

If you are to go to Christ, do not put on your good doings and feelings, or you will get nothing. Go in your sins, they are your livery. Your ruin is your argument for mercy! Your poverty is your plea for heavenly alms! And your need is the motive for heavenly goodness.

Do not complain then of your poverty, my daughter, - we only complain of that which is unwelcome, and if poverty is unwelcome to you, you are no longer poor in spirit.

Understand this clearly: if you know how to give, you must know how to pay back. . .

Others will give away large alms in order to be considered charitable people. Should they not give these out of their own wages, which so often they squander on trifles? If this has happened to you, do not forget that you are obliged to pay back to the person concerned all that you gave to the poor without the knowledge or consent of your employers. Then again, there is the one who has been entrusted by his employer with the supervision of the staff, or of workmen, who gives out wine and all sorts of other things to them if they ask him.

Should we grieve over a little misplaced charity, when an all knowing, all wise Being showers down every day his benefits on the unthankful and undeserving?

The best remedy for dryness of spirit, is to picture ourselves as beggars in the presence of God and the Saints, and like a beggar, to go first to one saint, then to another, to ask a spiritual alms of them with the same earnestness as a poor fellow in the streets would ask an alms of us.

He who feels that the vice of avarice has got hold of him, should not wish to observe fasts of supererogation, but to give alms.

If you are attached to the things of this earth, you should give alms sufficient to enable you to punish your avarice by depriving yourself of all that is not absolutely necessary for life.

Yet, when we must put aside our wrath, quench our envy, soften our anger, offer our prayers, and show a disposition which is reasonable, mild, kindly, and loving, how could poverty stand in our way? For we accomplish these things not by spending money but by making the correct choice.

When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what they right hand doeth.

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, himself, his hungering neighbor and me.

Giving alms is only a virtuous deed when you give money that you yourself worked to get.

The greatest giver of alms is cowardice.

I do not give alms; I am not poor enough for that.

Are we not to pity and supply the poor, though they have no relation to us? No relation? That cannot be. The Gospel styles them all our brethren.

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people.

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

This is what you should do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men ... re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss what insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem.

There is not a soul who does not have to beg alms of another, either a smile, a handshake, or a fond eye.

To steale the Hog, and give the feet for almes. [To steal the hog, and give the feet to alms.]

The gift without the giver is rare.

A spiritual prayer is a humble prayer. Prayer is the asking of an alms, which requires humility... The lower the heart descends, the higher the prayer ascends.

The poor should live by alms.

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

If you disclose your alms, even then it is well done, but if you keep them secret, and give them to the poor, then that is better still for you;?and this wipes off from you some of your evil deeds.

Also see how many quarters of corn you will spend in a week in dispensable bread, how much in alms.

There is no one on earth more disgusting and repulsive than he who gives alms. Even as there is no one so miserable as he who accepts them.

Character is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls.

In the matter of piety, poverty serves us better than wealth, and work better than idleness, especially since wealth becomes an obstacle even for those who do not devote themselves to it.

Let us proportion our alms to our ability, lest we provoke God to proportion His blessings to our alms.

I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt.

And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

Those good men who take such pleasure in relieving the miserable for Christ's sake, would not have been less forward to minister onto Christ Himself.

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

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.

The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode.