A Quote by Owen Feltham

Where there is plenty, charity is a duty, not a courtesy

Owen Feltham

Quote Topics

Charity Courtesy Duty Plenty

Quote Author

Owen Feltham
British - Celebrity
1602 - 1668

My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.

Ayn Rand

Courtesy is doing that which nothing under the sun makes you do but human kindness. Courtesy springs from the heart; if the mind prompts the action, there is a reason; if there be a reason, it is not courtesy, for courtesy has no reason. Courtesy is good will, and good will is prompted by the heart full of love to be kind. Only the generous man is truly courteous. He gives freely without a thought of receiving anything in return.

B. C. Forbes

Courtesy is fine and heaven knows we need more and more of it in a rude and frenetic world, but mechanized courtesy is as pallid as Pablum ... in fact, it isn't even courtesy.

Cornelia Otis Skinner

Six essential qualities that are the key to success: Sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, charity.

William C. Menninger

You know, that man has a spirit, that each man and woman is unique, that we have duty to promote our unalienable rights and to protect them, that we have a duty to our families and ourselves, to take care of ourselves, to contribute to charity, that we have a duty to support a just and righteous law that is stable and predictable.

Mark Levin

To be humble to superiors is a duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.

Benjamin Franklin

Courtesy should be apparent in all our actions and words and in all aspects of daily life. But be courtesy, I do not mean rigid, cold formality. Courtesy in the truest sense is selfless concern for the welfare and physical and mental comfort of the other person.

Mas Oyama

Charity in various guises is an intruder the poor see often; but courtesy and delicacy are visitants with which they are seldom honored.

Ouida

I encourage courtesy. To accept nothing less than courtesy, and to give nothing less than courtesy. If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent.

Maya Angelou

The duty of the State toward the citizen is the duty of the servant to its master.... One of the duties of the State is that of caring for those of its citizens who find themselves the victims of such adverse circumstances as makes them unable to obtain even the necessities for mere existence without the aid of others.... To these unfortunate citizens aid must be extended by government--not as a matter of charity but as a matter of social duty.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

For, if we have not charity, we are not Christians: charity is the great duty of Christians.

George Whitefield

There is plenty of television. There are plenty of talk shows. There are plenty of comedians. But there is not plenty of worship of the true and living God.

Charles R. Swindoll

When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding the solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences.

Muhammad Yunus

Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.

James Madison

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.