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If those who owe us nothing gave us nothing, how poor we would be.

—Antonio Porchia

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giving wealth interdependence exchange
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One could laugh at the world better if it didn't mix tender kindliness with its brutality.

—D. H. Lawrence

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I can think of no more stirring symbol of man's humanity to man than a fire engine.

—Kurt Vonnegut

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humanity fire
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One life stamps and influences another, which in turn stamps and influences another, on and on, until the soul of human experience breathes on in generations we'll never even meet.

—Mary Kay Blakely

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soul experience influence
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We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.

—Mark Vonnegut

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purpose help reason
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When we honestly ask ourselves which people in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

—Henri Nouwen

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My feeling is that there is nothing in life but refraining from hurting others, and comforting those who are sad.

—Olive Schreiner

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empathy life purpose sadness comfort do no harm
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Saving someone's life is like falling in love, the best drug in the world.

—Paul Schrader

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love drugs high
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She is such a good friend that she would throw all her acquaintances into the water for the pleasure of fishing them out again.

—Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand

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There is incredible value in being of service to others. I think if many of the people in therapy offices were dragged out to put their finger in a dike, or take up their place in a working line, they would be relieved of terrible burdens.

—Elizabeth Berg

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The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away.

—Barbara Kingsolver

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The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But . . . the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?

—Martin Luther King Jr.

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Love . . . is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.

—Iris Murdoch

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This is our mammalian conflict — what to give to the others, and what to keep for yourself. Treading that line, keeping the others in check, and being kept in check by them, is what we call morality.

—Ian McEwan

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A cigar," said the altruist, "a cigar, my good man, I cannot give you. But any time you need a light, just come around; mine is always lit.

—Karl Kraus

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