Ralph Waldo Emerson Generosity Quotations

The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.

You cannot give anything to a magnanimous person. After you have served him, he at once puts you in debt by his magnanimity.

It is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts.

Noblesse oblige; or, superior advantages bind you to larger generosity.

Exaggeration is in the course of things. Nature sends no creature, no man into the world, without adding a small excess of his proper quality. Given the planet, it is still necessary to add the impulse; so, to every creature nature added a little violence of direction in its proper path, a shove to put it on its way; in every instance, a slight generosity, a drop too much.