This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
All acts of charity or giving are valuable only inasmuch as they recognize the true dignity of those toward whom the contribution is directed. Any money or time given to another without recognizing their full equality, is as chaff in the wind, and serves only the mockery of the ego. Pity or sorrow is never a worthy reason for charity, for it only reinforces the bondage of the giver and the recipient. Real charity is never a giving, but always a sharing. He who gives as a giver remains half; he who shares, knows wholeness.
Charity | Dignity | Ego | Equality | Giving | Mockery | Money | Pity | Reason | Sorrow | Time | Wholeness |
The infinite distance between body and mind is a symbol of the infinitely more infinite distance between mind and charity; for charity is supernatural.
Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL
Unreal is action without discipline, charity without sympathy, ritual without devotion.
Action | Charity | Devotion | Discipline | Sympathy |
Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature.
Goodness answers to the theological virtue charity, and admits no excess but error. The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall. But in charity there is no excess; neither can angel or man come in danger by it.
Angels | Charity | Danger | Desire | Error | Excess | Knowledge | Man | Power | Virtue | Virtue | Danger |
He that defers his charity until he is dead is, if a man weighs it rightly, rather liberal of another man’s good than his own.
True charity is spontaneous and finds its own occasion; it is never the offspring of importunity, nor of emulation.
Charity |
Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL
Anticipate charity by preventing poverty; assist the reduced fellow man, either by a considerable gift or a sum of money or by teaching him a trade or by putting him in the way of business so that he may earn an honest livelihood and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity. This is the highest step and summit of charity's golden ladder.
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
Anticipate charity by preventing poverty.
I prefer charity to hospitality because charity begins at home and hospitality ends there.
Charity | Ends | Hospitality |
The sincerity which is not charitable proceeds from a charity which is not sincere.