Do not stand on a high pedestal and take five paise* in your hand and say, 'Here my poor man', but be grateful that the poor man is there, so that by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself. It is not the reciever that is blessed, but it is the giver.
-- Swami Vivekananda.

*paise = Indian equivalent to the American cents, and English pennies)

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much love, light and laughter,
ananya.



*~ Scatter Joy ~* - Emerson

Not what we give, but what we share; for the gift without the giver is bare. Who gives of himself and his alms feeds three--himself, his hungering neighbor and me.
--James Russell Lowell


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God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that can't be changed, Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.
-Reinhold Niebuhr

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

--Francis of Assisi, 1182-1226.

We must learn to love life without ever trusting it. G.K. Chesterton
Where are we going? And why are we in this handbasket?

Giving frees us from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others.
~Barbara Bush~

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
~Winston Churchill~

It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.
~Albert Einstein~

No one has ever become poor by giving.
~Anne Frank~

Think of giving not as a duty but as a privilege.
~John D. Rockefeller Jr.~

"Do all things with love." Og Mandino