Selected help quotes

1. I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.

2. The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.

3. Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.

4. I have sometimes thought that there is no being so venomous, so bloodthirsty as a professed philanthropist.

5. It's like you wanting to marry Miss World and she doesn't want you, what can I do about it? I can try to help you, but if she does not want to marry you what can I do?

6. All men are in need of help and depend on one another. Human solidarity is the necessary condition for the unfolding of any one individual.

7. Before hastening to secure a possible reward of five taels by dragging an unobservant person away from a falling building, examine well his features lest you find, when too late, that it is one to whom you are indebted for double that amount.

8. Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.

9. Superman! Champion of the oppressed. The physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need.

10. To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.

11. The poor folk gladly came to me, for I did them no unkindness, but helped them as much as I could.

12. The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.

13. I have pondered long, and I know now that only the pure of heart forgive the thirst that leads to dead waters. And only the sure of foot can give a hand to him who stumbles.

14. If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason to avoid them.

15. Help one another is part of the religion of our sisterhood.

16. If you never budge, don't expect a push.

17. I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.

18. A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

19. I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.

20. Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.

21. She needed help, but God was in a meeting whenever she rang.

22. But oars alone can ne'er prevail To reach the distant coast; The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.

23. I don't want problems solved for me. I want the fishing rod, not the fish.

24. You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.

25. Of what help is anyone who can only be approached with the right words?

26. He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.

27. If you help others, you will be helped, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in one hundred years, but you will be helped. Nature must pay off the debt... It is a mathematical law and all life is mathematics.

28. I went to the Missing Persons Bureau, but no one was there.

29. We do have the power to save one another . . .

30. Two heads are better than one.

31. To-day unbind the captive, So only are ye unbound; Lift up a people from the dust, Trump of their rescue, sound!

32. The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'

33. 'Those who cannot help ought also not advise: in an order where every mousehole has been plugged, mere advice exactly equals condemnation.'

34. Can I see another's woe, And not be in sorrow too? Can I see another's grief, And not seek for kind relief?

35. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.

36. Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and now. Our fellow men have a claim to our help; no generation must be sacrificed for the sake of future generations, for the sake of an ideal of happiness that may never be realised.

37. No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.

38. I wish the art of benefiting men had kept pace with the art of destroying them; for though war has become slow, philanthropy has remained hasty. The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the, benevolence of mankind does most good or harm. Great good, no doubt, philanthropy does, but then it also does great evil. It augments so much vice, it multiplies so much suffering, it brings to life such great populations to suffer and to be vicious, that it is open to argument whether it be or be not an evil to the world, and this is entirely because excellent people fancy that they can do much by rapid action - that they will most benefit the world when they most relieve their own feelings; that as soon as an evil is seen 'something' ought to be done to stay and prevent it.

39. Simon's head was tilted slightly up. His eyes could not break away and the Lord of the Flies hung in space before him. 'What are you doing out here all alone? Aren't you afraid of me?' Simon shook. 'There isn't anyone to help you. Only me. And I'm the Beast.' Simon's mouth labored, brought forth audible words. 'Pig's head on a stick.' 'Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn't you?' said the head. For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter. 'You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you? Close, close, close! I'm the reason why it's no go? Why things are what they are?'

40. Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up

41. The Tree was finished, though not finished with - 'Just the other way about to what it used to be,' he thought - but in the Forest there were a number of inconclusive regions, that still needed work and thought. Nothing needed altering any longer, nothing was wrong, as far as it had gone, but it needed continuing up to a definite point. Niggle saw the point precisely, in each case. He sat down under a very beautiful distant tree - a variation of the Great Tree, but quite individual, or it would be with a little more attention - and he considered where to begin work, and where to end it, and how much time was required. He could not quite work out his scheme. 'Of course!' he said. 'What I need is Parish. There are lots of things about earth, plants, and trees that he knows and I don't. This place cannot be left just as my private park. I need help and advice: I ought to have got it sooner.'

42. As they worked together, it became plain that Niggle was now the better of the two at ordering his time and getting things done. Oddly enough, it was Niggle who became most absorbed in building and gardening, while Parish often wandered about looking at trees, and especially at the Tree. One day Niggle was busy planting a quickset hedge, and Parish was lying on the grass near by, looking attentively at a beautiful and shapely little yellow flower growing in the green turf. Niggle had put a lot of them among the roots of his Tree long ago. Suddenly Parish looked up: his face was glistening in the sun, and he was smiling. 'This is grand!' he said. 'I oughtn't to be here, really. Thank you for putting in a word for me.' 'Nonsense,' said Niggle. 'I don't remember what I said, but anyway it was not nearly enough.' 'Oh yes, it was,' said Parish. 'It got me out a lot sooner. That Second Voice, you know: he had me sent here; he said you had asked to see me. I owe it to you.' 'No. You owe it to the Second Voice,' said Niggle. 'We both do.'

43. I think you need help Don't we all

44. It's a small thang through and true/What could I do? Real homies help ya get through,

45. Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them.

46. Je ne sais ou va mon chemin, mais je marche mieux quand ma main serre la tienne. ('A mon frere revenant d'Italie', mars 1844)

47. Think twice before helping a friend in need.

48. 'But of course that was the same boat that Aslan (he seems to be at the back of all the stories) pushed ashore at the right place for Asheesh to pick me up. I wish I knew that knight's name, fore he must have kept me alive and starved himself to do it' 'I suppose Aslan would say that was part of someone else's story,' said Aravis. 'I was forgetting that,' said Cor. (ch. 14)

49. You are never strong enough that you don't need help.

50. Her godmother, who was a fairy, said to her, 'You want to go to the ball, don't you?'

51. He is one of those wise philanthropists who in a time of famine would vote for nothing but a supply of toothpicks.

52. Ce n'est pas un grand malheur d'obliger des ingrats, mais c'en est un insupportable d'etre oblige a un malhonnete homme.

53. You get a canoe later and I'll paddle you.

54. I speak for the slave when I say that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain Brown to that philanthropy which neither shoots me nor liberates me.

55. I want to say to you, Help yourself, so you can help someone else.

56. There are people who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.

57. Be helpful, even if it compromises you.

58. Look at you, you madman! Screaming you are of thirst and dying as if you are in a desert, when all around you there is nothing but water.

59. 'The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow brick,' said the Witch, 'so you cannot miss it. When you get to Oz do not be afraid of him, but tell your story and ask him to help you'.

60. We get forwards in the world not so much by doing services, as receiving them: you take a withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then you water it, because you have planted it.

61. Ein' feste burg is unser Gott, ein gute wehr und waffen. Er hilft uns frei aus aller not, die uns itzt hat betroffen.

62. A lot can be said for the infinite mercies of God, but the smarts of a good pharmacist, when you get down to it, is worth more.

63. Helping people was one of the two basic things Fat had been told to give up; helping people and taking dope. He had stopped taking dope, but all his energy and enthusiasm were now totally channelled into saving people. Better he had kept on with the dope.

64. After dinner at a friends house, Diana said, 'Do you have a pair of Marigolds?' I'll do the washing up. The host convinced her there was no need!

65. All those who try to go it sole alone, Too proud to be beholden for relief, Are absolutely sure to come to grief.

66. The dead do not suffer. And if they live again, their lives will surely be as good as ours. We have no fear. We are all children of the same mother, and the same fate awaits us all. We, too, have our religion, and it is this: Help for the living, hope for the dead.

67. The hands that help are far better than the lips that pray.

68. It is impossible to do anything for anyone.

69. Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes. Any help we can give you must be different from that you can give yourselves, and perhaps the value of that help may lie in the fact of that difference.

70. 'Help me!'