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Quotations about assistance
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher.
Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) American clergyman and writer
“Salt,” Counsels by the Way (1921 ed.)
(Source)
When I think about all the money we spent on bombs and munitions, and our failures in Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world … Instead of advancing our agenda using force, we should have instead built schools and hospitals in these countries, improving the lives of their children. By now, those children would have grown into positions of influence, and they would be grateful to us instead of hating us.
George Shultz (b. 1920) American economist, statesman, businessman
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted in In Daniel Levitin, The Organized Mind (2014).
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for any one else.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) English writer and social critic
Our Mutual Friend, ch. 9 (1864-65)
Most People return small Favors, acknowledge middling ones, and repay great ones with Ingratitude.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher
Poor Richard’s Almanack (Apr 1751)
Them as can do has to do for them as can’t. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
The Wee Free Men (2003)
Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes. Any help we can give you must be different from that you can give yourselves, and perhaps the value of that help may lie in the fact of that difference.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) English modernist writer [b. Adeline Virginia Stephen]
Three Guineas, ch. 1 (1938)
You cannot push anyone up the ladder unless he is willing to climb.
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) American industrialist and philanthropist
(Attributed)
Most common form of an adage Carnegie frequently used regarding charity. Variants:
- "It is of no use to boost a man up a ladder unless he is willing to climb himself." -- In Cyrus Holdridge, "A Millionaire and His Hobby," Our Day (Jan 1900).
- "You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb a little himself." -- Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Business Men, Vol. 25 (1909).
It is all right to tell a man to lift himself up by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself up by his own bootstraps.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, orator
Sermon, Passion Sunday, National Cathedral (31 Mar 1968)
For mortal to aid mortal — this is god; and this is the road to eternal glory.
Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79) Roman author, naturalist, philosopher, military commander [Gaius Plinius Secundus]
Natural History, 2.5 [tr. Rackham (1938)]
The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“Liberty”
God has … ordered things that we may learn to bear one another’s burdens; for there is no man without his faults, none without his burden. None is sufficient in himself; none is wise in himself; therefore, we must support one another, comfort, help, teach, and advise one another.
Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471) German monk, author
The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, ch. 16 (c. 1418) [tr. L. Sherley-Price (1952)]
(Source)
Alt trans.: "But God has so ordained, that we may learn to bear with one another's burdens, for there is no man without fault, no man without burden, no man sufficient to himself nor wise enough. Hence we must support one another, console one another, mutually help, counsel, and advise ...."
It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us as the confidence of their help.
Epicurus (341-270 BC) Greek philosopher
The Vatican Sayings
Alt. trans.: "It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us."
