This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
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.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Who does not patiently subdue his mourning prolongs his grief.
William Temple, fully Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet
Ecstatic worship which is devoid of charity is for all practical purposes heathen.
What is an offering to God? Charity to His children.
The greatest charity is to enable the poor to earn a living.
Charity |
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
What better way is there to make men love one another than to make men understand one another. True charity comes only with clarity - just as "mercy" is but justice that understands. Surely the root of all evil is the inability to see clearly that which is.
Better | Charity | Evil | Justice | Love | Men | Mercy | Understand |
There is no truer cause of unhappiness amongst men than, where naturally expecting charity and benevolence, they receive harm and vexation.
Gilbert Keith "G.K." Chesteron
Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and, eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.
Charity | Circumstances | Hope | Means | Power | Virtue | Virtue |