A successful man is he who receives a great deal from his fellow men, usually incomparably more than corresponds to his service to them. The value of a man, however, should be seen in what he gives, and not in what he is able to receive.

What if...what if that is the price one has to pay for staying on? Perhaps that is how they look at it: perhaps that is how I should look at it too. They see me as owing something. They see themselves as debt collectors, tax collectors. Why should I be allowed to live here without paying?

The heart that gives, gathers.

Never will I pursue happiness, because it is not a goal, just a by-product, and there is no happiness in having or in getting, only in giving.

Listen, God can't bless what you won't do. You haven't been taught correctly. Prosperity doesn't just come from giving an offering. It's good to be a giver. But you must also be a thinker, a planner, and a worker.

I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: 'What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.'

The rich man is not one who is in possession of much, but one who gives much.

The rich man who gives to the poor does not bestow alms but pays a debt.

A man should make all he can, and give all he can.

[Meanness] is more ingrained in man's nature than Prodigality; the mass of mankind are avaricious rather than open-handed.

Ah! There you are! he exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean. I'm so glad to see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?

It is a charming quality of the happiness we inspire in others that, far from being diminished like a reflection, it comes back to us enhanced.