Quote

Do not give to the poor expecting to get their gratitude so that you can feel good about yourself. If you do, your giving will be thin and short-lived, and that is not what the poor need it will only improvish them further. Give only if you have something you must give give only if you are someone for whom giving is its own reward.

Dorothy Day

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Dorothy Day
Age: 83 †
Born: 1897
Born: November 8
Died: 1980
Died: November 29
Autobiographer
Editor
Journalist
Peace Activist
Social Activist
Suffragist
Trade Unionist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Feels
Lived
Giving
Short
Needs
Poor
Something
Someone
Thin
Good
Give
Expecting
Need
Reward
Feel
Rewards
Must
Gratitude

More quotes by Dorothy Day

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We want no revolution we want the brotherhood of men. We want men to love one another. We want all men to have what is sufficient for their needs. And now - strange thought - the devil has so maneuvered that the people turn from Him because those who profess Him are clothed in soft raiment and sit at well-spread tables and deny the poor.
Dorothy Day
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It is we ourselves that we have to think about, no one else. That is the way the saints worked. They paid attention to what they were doing, and if others were attracted to them by their enterprise, why, well and good. But they looked to themselves first of all.
Dorothy Day
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The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?
Dorothy Day
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Every Marxist group that I've known has its theoreticians.
Dorothy Day
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Think what the world could look like if we took care of the poor even half as well as we do our Bibles!
Dorothy Day
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When they call you a saint, it means basically that you are not to be taken seriously.
Dorothy Day
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It is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.
Dorothy Day
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It is penance to work, to give oneself to others, to endure the pinpricks of community living.
Dorothy Day
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I think anarchy is natural to the Catholic. The Church is pretty anarchistic, you know. Who pays attention to the Pope or the Cardinals?
Dorothy Day
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Be close enough to people so that you are indifferent to the material. And also have faith.
Dorothy Day
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How can you see Christ in people? And we only say: It is an act of faith, constantly repeated. It is an act of love, resulting from an act of faith. It is an act of hope, that we can awaken these same acts in their hearts, too, with the help of God.
Dorothy Day
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What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships?
Dorothy Day
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Knitting is very conducive to thought. It is nice to knit a while, put down the needles, write a while, then take up the sock again.
Dorothy Day
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If you feed the poor, you're a saint. If you ask why they're poor, you're a Communist.
Dorothy Day
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People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.
Dorothy Day
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Thank God that He has permitted us to live among the present problems. It is no longer permitted to anyone to be mediocre.
Dorothy Day
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What we would like to do is change the world...by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, of the poor, of the destitute. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world.
Dorothy Day
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I too complain ceaselessly in my heart and in my words too. My very life is a protest. Against government, for instance.
Dorothy Day
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With prayer, one can go on cheerfully and even happily. Without prayer, how grim a journey!
Dorothy Day
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We must recognize the fact that many Nazis, Marxists and Fascists believe passionately in their fundamental rightness, and allow nothing to hinder them from their goal in the pursuit of their mission.
Dorothy Day