Those Who Give Of Themselves Quotes & Sayings

As may be seen, there is only one sensible piece of advice to give to those who find themselves having to talk to an author about one of his books without having read it: praise it without going into detail. An author does not expect a summary or a rational analysis of his book and would even prefer you not to attempt such a thing. He expects only that, while maintaining the greatest possible degree of ambiguity, you will tell him you like what he wrote. — Pierre Bayard

And it is then, when The Cause, with its greedy mouth, tries to take more from you, tries to take that part of you that you cannot give away, it is only then that you realize all of your sacrifices have been for nothing. You have given yourself to a fraud. And what is left to replace what has been taken is not a hero's pride, but a bitter emptiness that sours even that last little core of yourself that you cling to. This is the destiny of the man who serves, the man who stands for others. This is the lot of the ones who go out to confront the wolf. This is the disillusionment of all those who protect the flock. This is their secret: that they have allowed their instincts to be used, not for the protection of others, but for the gain of a few. And their "honor" is a monument to the ashes of all those little pieces of themselves that they never got back. — D.J. Molles

... it would even be inexact to say that I thought of those who read it as readers of my book. Because they were not, as I saw it, my readers. More exactly they were readers of themselves, my book being a sort of magnifying glass ... by which I could give them the means to read within themselves. — Marcel Proust

One way to keep people close to you is by not giving them enough ... with people who give a lot of themselves, you sometimes lean back - but with people who give little you often lean forward, as if they're a spigot in the desert and you're the empty cup. It is the tropism of deprivation: We lean toward those who do not give. — Peggy Noonan

The clitoris not only applauds when a women flaunts her mastery; it will give a standing ovation. In the multiple orgasm, we see the finest evidence that our lady Klitoris helps those who help themselves. It may take many minutes to reach the first summit, but once there the lusty mountaineer finds wings awaiting her. She does noy need to scramble back to the ground before scaling the next peak, but can glide like a raptor on currents of joy. — Natalie Angier

41. Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. The Fellowship of the Believers 42. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44. All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47. praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. — Anonymous

How interesting it would be to write the story of the experiences in this life of a man who killed himself in his previous life; how he stumbles against the very demands which had offered themselves before, until he arrives at the realization that he must fulfill those demands. The deeds of the preceding life give direction to the present life. — Leo Tolstoy

Those who are unhappy
clutch at shadows, and to
give themselves an enjoyment
that truth refuses them, they
artfully bring into being all
sorts of illusions. — Marquis De Sade

Is it not clear that to give to such women as desire it and can devote themselves to literary and scientific pursuits all the advantages enjoyed by men of the same class will lessen essentially the number of thoughtless, idle, vain and frivolous women and thus secure the [sic] society the services of those who now hang as dead weight? — Sarah Moore Grimke

When you work with web design companies in San Francisco, you end up with a bunch of twenty-somethings who have their own cultural peculiarities, including obscurity for its own sake. You give those guys a website for a banking institution and they screw it up, because they are designing for themselves. — Brenda Laurel

Therapists are never "done" with growth, they are simply people who should be dedicated to learning as much about themselves and others as they possibly can. The best therapists are fully human and engage in the struggles of life. Our own failures help us to remain open to the struggles of others; our personal victories give us the optimism and courage to inspire those struggling with their lives. — Louis Cozolino

When have I ever suggested you burn them? I am allowed to have opinions, aren't I? And I don't hate them - I don't give a fig about them. The only reason I cared is because you were so comfortable belittling me for believing things you only read about. I was afraid you'd turn into one of those literary types who say books can change the world when they're feeling good about themselves and it's only a book when anybody challenges them. It wasn't about the books themselves - it was about hypocrisy. You can speak casually about burning the Alf Yeom for the same reason you'd be horrified if I suggested burning The Satanic Verses - because you have reactions, not convictions. — G. Willow Wilson

Nothin'. Nothin' at all. But there are a lot of folk out there who can't just be themselves right away. Some people have a lot of scars they carry around and it takes a while for them to be willing to make themselves vulnerable again. You," she paused, giving weight to her next words, "don't give those people a chance. — D.H. Starr

It has been well observed that few are better qualified to give others advice than those who have taken the least of it themselves. — Oliver Goldsmith

When we desire to be a blessing, we find that there are many ways in which we can bless others. We can give material goods to others, and we can also offer them the benefit of our experience. People who have faced and overcome challenges with alcohol and drugs often involve themselves in helping others who are experiencing similar difficulties. They understand the value of overcoming the problem. In every area of the human experience, we may find those precious ones who are able and willing to be a blessing to others. — John Templeton

I am more lost from the world than anyone has ever been.
More lost than people who lived here before here had a name.
Those people understood stars.
The still felt north in their bodies.
I don't have any idea what happened to north.
My life so far has made me stupid, helpless, dependent.
I am not like the people who came before.
They knew how to feed themselves, how to give birth by squatting in the roots of a tree.
They were lost, but lost didn't matter back then, since there was no found.
They could wander these woods before tribes, before people even.
Following deer or bears or who knows what.
The sort of lost that doesn't exist anymore anywhere. — Samantha Hunt

Give people the chance to interact, from small to big. Some people just want to click a 'like' button, say 'yes' or sign a petition. Others want to help you build the community themselves and be heavily involved. Make sure your community caters for a spectrum of engagement - with as many different entry points as possible for those who are busy but want to stay connected and for those who have more time to get involved with the hard graft. — Marc Thomas

The best advisers, helpers and friends, always are not those who tell us how to act in special cases, but who give us, out of themselves, the ardent spirit and desire to act right, and leave us then, even through many blunders, to find out what our own form of right action is. — Phillips Brooks

Further, all men are to be loved equally. But since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you. For, suppose that you had a great deal of some commodity, and felt bound to give it away to somebody who had none, and that it could not be given to more than one person; if two persons presented themselves, neither of whom had either from need or relationship a greater claim upon you than the other, you could do nothing fairer than choose by lot to which you would give what could not be given to both. Just so among men: since you cannot consult for the good of them all, you must take the matter as decided for you by a sort of lot, according as each man happens for the time being to be more closely connected with you.
Book 1, Chapter 28 - How we are to decide whom to aid — Augustine Of Hippo

I remember spending years of my life so upset about all of the life choices I felt I had available that I never moved. I was paralyzed by all the possibilities. I couldn't figure out which road would lead me to the fulfillment of my potential, this glorious, neurotic myth that lay always just in front of whatever I could manifest now. So I was always too scared to move, and fear of course is the great betrayer of self. The difference between those people living their potential and those who don't is not the amount of potential itself, but the amount of permission they give themselves to live in the present. — Marianne Williamson

An aristocracy come to power, convinced of its own disinterested quality, believing itself above both petty partisan interest and material greed. The suggestion that this also meant the holding and wielding of power was judged offensive by these same people, who preferred to view their role as service, though in fact this was typical of an era when many of the great rich families withdrew from the new restless grab for money of a modernizing America, and having already made their particular fortunes, turned to the public arena as a means of exercising power. They were viewed as reformers, though the reforms would be aimed more at the newer seekers of wealth than at those who already held it. ("First-generation millionaires," Garry Wills wrote in Nixon Agonistes, "give us libraries, second-generation millionaires give us themselves.") — David Halberstam

In Paul's view a church should not merely survive in its unfriendly pagan environment, but advance. Christians should have nothing to do with a sad acceptance of harsh surroundings, bearing heavy crosses with uncomplaining gloom, cultivating an oppressive sense of sin. They were to be positive, doing good to one another and to unbelieving Jews and pagans regardless of abuse or injury. "Rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks." No matter how adverse the circumstances, their way of life should be a rebuke to foulness and a spur to their neighbors to seek for themselves this new, extraordinary existence; Christians must outlove, outjoy, outthink, and always welcome those who opposed them. — John Charles Pollock

The best gift you can ever give your mentor is to grow. They feed off your growth. I believe that everyone has the seed of success inside, but too many people can't find it in themselves and as a result do not reach their potential. But there are those whose purpose in life is to fertilize the seed of potential in another, who are rewarded by seeing that person grow and blossom before their eyes. Raising up others to a higher level is a mentor's joy and sustenance. — John C. Maxwell

Are the worst enemies of society those who attack it or those who do not even give themselves the trouble of defending it? — Gustave Le Bon

I don't recall God ever saying you couldn't be 'cool'. It's only a problem if you esteem 'coolness' above that which is righteous and true, which is, when we give it its way, really what many of us do. 'Coolness' is too transient to be of any real and meaningful, lasting significance, and it is often in great conflict with one being one's honest, most vulnerable self. That, and in reality, some of the coolest people are actually those who least concern themselves with being 'cool' anyway, those who make 'trying to be cool' less evident. — Criss Jami

If you believe that a nation is really better off which achieves for a comparative few, those who are capable of attaining it, high culture, ease, opportunity, and that these few from their enlightenment should give what they consider best to those less favored, then you naturally belong to the Republican Party. But if you believe that people must struggle slowly to the light for themselves, then it seems to me that you are a Democrat. — Eleanor Roosevelt

We need an enemy to give people hope. Someone said that patriotism is the last refuge of cowards: those without moral principles usually wrap a flag around themselves, and the bastards always talk about the purity of the race. National identity is the last bastion of the dispossessed. But the meaning of identity is now based on hatred, on hatred for those who are not the same. Hatred has to be cultivated as a civic passion. The enemy is the friend of the people. You always want someone to hate in order to feel justified in your own misery. Hatred is the primordial passion. It is love that's abnormal. — Umberto Eco

For a young woman today, developing femininity successfully requires meeting three basic demands. The first of these is that she must defer to others, the second that she must anticipate and meet the needs of others, and the third, that she must seek self-definition through connection with another. The consequences of these requirements frequently mean that in denying themselves, women are unable to develop an authentic sense of their needs or a feeling of entitlement for their desires. Preoccupied with others' experience and unfamiliar with their own needs, women come to depend on the approval of those to whom they give. The imperative of affiliation, the culture demand that a woman must define herself through association with another, means that many aspects of self are under-developed, producing insecurity and a shaky sense of self. Under the competent carer who gives to the world lives a hungry, deprived and needy little girl who is unsure and ashamed of her desires and wants. — Susie Orbach

What if the police couldn't tell a loyal person just by color? What if there were enough people around who looked white but were really enemies of official society so that the cops couldn't tell whom to beat and whom to let off? What would they do then? They would begin to "enforce the law impartially," as the liberals say, beating only those who "deserve" it. But, as Anatole France noted, the law, in its majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. The standard that normally governs police behavior is wealth and its external manifestations - dress, speech, etc. At the present time, the class bias of the law is partially repressed by racial considerations; the removal of those considerations would give it free rein. Whites who are poor would find themselves on the receiving end of police justice as black people now do. — Anonymous

I think that a lot of the time, people are generous towards those whom they pity; but only find fault in those whom they see as better than themselves. There is a fake kind of goodness; and that is the goodness that is only good towards other people that make the givers feel better about themselves. Would you be good to someone you think is so much better than you are? Or who has so much more than you have? Or is your goodness only reserved for those who make you feel like a god because you give to them? Too often, there are shining, beautiful people, who suffer so much in this world, because there would be so many others willing to snuff out their flames! Goodness of a person is not measured by sympathy or compassion; rather, goodness is measured by empathy. Empathy goes beyond all the physical things you see with your two eyes. It's easy to be good to those you pity; much harder to be good to those whom you envy! — C. JoyBell C.

He was always thinking of his brother's soul, or of the souls of those who differed with him in opinion: it is a sort of comfort which many of the serious give themselves. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Here in America, those who once had no hope will give their kids the chance at a life they always wanted for themselves. Here in America, generations of unfulfilled dreams will finally come to pass. — Marco Rubio

Those who give of themselves rarely regret it. — Marvin Olasky

The self-assertive shrillness of protest arises because the facts of incommensurability ensure that protestors can never win an argument; the indignant self-righteousness of protest arises because the facts of incommensurability ensure equally that the protestors can never lose an argument either. Hence the utterance of protest is characteristically addressed to those who already share the protestors' premises. The effects of incommensurability ensure that protestors rarely have anyone else to talk to but themselves. This is not to say that protest cannot be effective; it is to say that it cannot be rationally effective and that its dominant modes of expression give evidence of a certain perhaps unconscious awareness of this. The — Alasdair MacIntyre

Your thoughts of Christ, be very careful that they are conceived and directed according to the rule of the word, lest you deceive your own souls, and give up the conduct of your affections unto vain imaginations. . . . [But] we are not to forego our duty [to contemplate Christ] because other men have been mistaken in theirs, nor part with practical, fundamental principles of religion because they have been abused by superstition. . . . Yet I must say that I had rather be among them who, in the actings of their love and affection unto Christ, do fall into some irregularities and excesses in the manner of expressing it . . . than among those who, professing themselves to be Christians, do almost disavow their having any thoughts of or affection unto the person of Christ.297 — Timothy Keller

It is one of the strange ironies of this strange life that those who work the hardest, who subject themselves to the strictest discipline, who give up certain pleasurable things in order to achieve a goal, are the happiest. — Brutus Hamilton

It's just that it's a good idea not to let him have your phone number unless you possess an industrial-grade answering machine." "What? Why's that?" "Well, he's one of those people who can only think when he's talking. When he has ideas, he has to talk them out to whoever will listen. Or, if the people themselves are not available, which is increasingly the case, their answering machines will do just as well. He just phones them up and talks at them. He has one secretary whose sole job is to collect tapes from people he might have phoned, transcribe them, sort them and give him the edited text the next day in a blue folder. — Douglas Adams

It is my purpose also to give the names and number and times of those who through love of innovation have run into the greatest errors, and, proclaiming themselves discoverers of knowledge falsely so-called [1 Timothy 6:20] have like fierce wolves unmercifully devastated the flock of Christ. — Eusebius

Success come to those people who never ever doubt themselves! — Avijeet Das

We, however, want to become those we are
human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who create themselves. To that end we must become the best learners and discoverers of everything that is lawful and necessary in the world: we must become physicists in order to be able to be creators in this sense
while hitherto all valuations and ideals have been based on ignorance of physics or were constructed so as to contradict it. Therefore: long live physics! And even more so that which compels us to turn to physics
our honesty! — Friedrich Nietzsche

If it had not been for the pernicious power of envy, men would not so have exalted vengeance above innocence and profit above justice ... in these acts of revenge on others, men take it upon themselves to begin the process of repealing those general laws of humanity which are there to give a hope of salvation to all who are in distress. — Thucydides

It is a great tragedy when those who are afflicted with adversity or a source of hopelessness turn their backs on prayer. To their peril, they ignore that spiritual lifeline just at the time when their attention to it most needs to be intensified. By so doing they cut themselves of from revelation and inspiration and deprive themselves of hearing the Lord's voice. They give up the prospect of gaining the very hope and comfort for which their hearts yearn. — David S. Baxter

May there be great peace and happiness in your lives! May society become a better place and those that are hurting deep down inside feel great about themselves and to those that hate the world as well as everything still, fight that ball of bitterness that lives within you. The world may not care about you so you have to care about yourself and take care of yourself or go to places for asylum & serenity. Don't feel ashamed or make the world give you the impression because of negative stereotypes that you shouldn't because humans are about themselves and their personal issues. At the end of the day, who knows you better than yourself? Perhaps close friends? God? But may God be a God of peace for you. And if you don't have any true friends, remember one genuine friend is better than a thousand fake friends. — Krystal Volney

The gun-control crusade today is like the Prohibition crusade 100 years ago. It is a shared zealotry that binds the self-righteous know-it-alls in a warm fellowship of those who see themselves as fighting on the side of the angels against the forces of evil. It is a lofty role that they are not about to give up for anything so mundane as facts - or even the lives of other people. — Thomas Sowell

The truth of an orchestra is heard when they try to find their common notes before the show. All those strings and tubes and odd plunking things straining in different directions; an orchestra is merely a mob of single-minded maniacs who every so often condescend to work together, and then, mostly, they soar - they ascend - they give us wings.

Then they finish and bow and grumble and stomp off to their grotty little hovels muttering to themselves. Honestly, music is a miracle. You have no idea. — Kelly Gardiner

You can purchase the mind of Pascal for a crown. Pleasures even cheaper are sold to those who give themselves up to them. It is only luxuries and objects of caprice that are rare and difficult to obtain; unfortunately they are the only things that touch the curiosity and taste of ordinary men. — Luc De Clapiers

If I had a child who wanted to be a teacher, I would bid him Godspeed as if he were going to war. For indeed the war against prejudice, greed, and ignorance is eternal, and those who dedicate themselves to it give their lives no less because they may live to see some fraction of the battle won. — James Hilton

Occasionally I talk with people who see doctors as people who do nothing but give of themselves and never receive from anyone else - especially not from their patients. That is totally
false. The longer I remain in my profession, the more I realize how much I receive from those who come to me for help. — Benjamin Carson

I do not enlighten those who are not eager to learn, nor arouse those who are not anxious to give an explanation themselves. If I have presented one corner of the square and they cannot come back to me with the other three, I should not go over the points again. — Confucius

[on the future of hand-drawn animation] I'm actually not that worried. I wouldn't give up on it completely. Once in a while there are strange, rich people who like to invest in odd things. You're going to have people in the corners of garages making cartoons to please themselves. And I'm more interested in those people than I am in big business. — Hayao Miyazaki

Does God have a reason for wanting us to be charitable, to take care of those who can't take care of themselves? Either God does or God doesn't, it's just logic. If God has a reason then there is a reason independent of God and whatever God's reason is we should figure it out for ourselves. There is a reason and God doesn't really ground morality at all. God wants us to give charity because it's the right thing to do. — Rebecca Goldstein

Inflation is not a Robin Hood, taking from the rich to give to the poor. Rather, it deals most cruelly with those who can least protect themselves. It strikes hardest those millions of our citizens whose incomes do not quickly rise with the cost of living. When prices soar, the pensioner and the widow see their security undermined, the man of thrift sees his savings melt away; the white collar worker, the minister, and the teacher see their standards of living dragged down. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

The very reason why we object to state ownership, that it puts a stop to individual initiative and to the healthy development of personal responsibility, is the reason why we object to an unsupervised, unchecked monopolistic control in private hands. We urge control and supervision by the nation as an antidote to the movement for state socialism. Those who advocate total lack of regulation, those who advocate lawlessness in the business world, themselves give the strongest impulse to what I believe would be the deadening movement toward unadulterated state socialism. — Theodore Roosevelt

Obviously, if Christianity is going to survive as more than a respecter and comforter of profitable inquiries, then Christians, regardless of their organizations, are going to have to interest themselves in economy-which is to say, in nature and in work. They are going to have to give workable answers to those who say we cannot live without this economy that is destroying us and our world, who see the murder of Creation as the only way of life. — Wendell Berry

Christ does not give us permission to curse the name of men he has died to save. We are to treat all men with respect and kindness whatever we may think of their politics. Those who busy themselves spewing hatred upon evil men may soon find to their surprise, that they themselves are becoming more and more infused with the very evil they once so detested. (from Call a Man a Fool ... ) — Tom King

If those persons, who fancy themselves gifted with both the power and the right to define and punish other men's vices, would but turn their thoughts inwardly, they would probably find that they have a great work to do at home; and that, when that shall have been completed, they will be little disposed to do more towards correcting the vices of others, than simply to give to others the results of their experience and observation. — Lysander Spooner

Those who keep careful watch over their conscience are not often liable to form rash judgments, for just as when the clouds lower the bees make for the shelter of their hive, so really good people shrink back into themselves, and refuse to be mixed up with the clouds and fogs of their neighbour's questionable doings, and rather than meddle with others, they consecrate their energies on their own improvement and good resolutions. No surer sign of an unprofitable life than when people give way to censoriousness and inquisitiveness into the lives of other men. — Francis De Sales

When occasions present themselves in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests to withstand the temporary delusion in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection. Instances might be cited in which a conduct of this kind has saved the people from very fatal consequences of their own mistakes, and has procured lasting monuments of their gratitude to the men who had courage and magnanimity enough to serve them at the peril of their displeasure. — Alexander Hamilton

Those who give themselves to prayer should in a special manner have always a devotion to St. Joseph; for I know not how any man can think of the Queen of the angels, during the time that she suffered so much with the Infant Jesus, without giving thanks to St. Joseph for the services he rendered them then. — Saint Teresa Of Avila

In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience. — Oscar Wilde

I am not in charge of this House, and never will be. I have no say about who is in and who is out. I do not get to make the rules. Like Job, I was nowhere when God laid the foundations of the earth. I cannot bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion. I do not even know when the mountain goats give birth, much less the ordinances of the heavens. I am a guest here, charged with serving other guests - even those who present themselves as my enemies. I am allowed to resist them, but as long as I trust in one God who made us all, I cannot act as if they are no kin to me. There is only one House. Human beings will either learn to live in it together or we will not survive to hear its sigh of relief when our numbered days are done. — Barbara Brown Taylor

There are those superstars who refuse to give anything of themselves to the public except what they see on-screen. In movies and on records, it's easy to insulate one's self from the public; that's why I think I wouldn't care to be a television performer, particularly in the States, where TV stardom is so intimate. — George Harrison

No-one knows what became of him, although some say on the coldest nights, in a place where it's said a village once stood, you can hear laughter echoing through the woods, for that is how it is with those who give themselves over to the Dark so completely, release from life is denied them, and the Beyond closed to them forevermore. — Anthony Ryan

Seven years of this and I'll have lost whatever edge I once had," I said. "I'll have turned into one of those well-fed countrywomen who pride themselves on making better preserves then their neighbors, and give all their chickens names. — Juliet Marillier

I choose free libraries as the best agencies for improving the masses of the people, because they give nothing for nothing. They only help those who help themselves. — Andrew Carnegie

The horsemen thatching the roof with feathers are a likeness of people who go forth into the world to seek riches and fortune. When they return their houses are bare, and so they go on for ever
The young man dragging up the trees to make a fire is a likeness of those who labour for others: much trouble they have, but they never warm themselves at the fire.
The three heads in the wells are three kinds of men. Some there are who give freely when they get freely; some who give freely though they get little; some who get much and give little--and they are the worst of the three... — Mary McGarry

Who do you want them to think you are? How do you think people see you? Or don't you let them near enough to see. You make up their minds for them. Do you think you succeed in convincing people that you are what you seem to be? You make people meet you on your own territory. You don't help them. You let them verbally hang themselves and then feel better about yourself, your power, your own sense of worth. You have the power to alienate them and if they allow it, you might even manage to make them feel awkward and foolish--foolish for letting you affect them at all. Do you want them to like you? Or are you one of those people who "don't care what people think." You're not living your life for them, so why should you give a fuck what people think? You make people come to you and, when they eventually do, you punish them with your smugness. Nothing ever out of character. — Carrie Fisher