Several famous authors such as C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens and others have always talked about the act of giving in their stories. A few quotes from these classic writers that reflects the true spirit of Christmas which entails sacrificial giving are shown below:
C.S. Lewis:
“If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.”
Charles Dickens:
“All generous spirits are ambitious, I suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care for.”
Simone de Beauvoir:
“That’s what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.”
Robert Louis Stevenson:
“You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.”
Herman Melville:
“We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.”
Walt Whitman:
“Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, when I give I give myself.”
George Eliot:
“Pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”
J.M. Coetzee:
“[I]f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.”
Source: Huffingtonpost.com
