Bharati Mukherjee Quotes

In India, people tend to get categorised by their job or caste or colour. But in Kamathipura, despite their horrid living, it was truly eye-opening how kind and sensitive these women are.

Even more than this, however, the sick - like lepers - were often reviled because people believed that they had brought their torments upon themselves.

If any of thy brethren be poor …, thou shalt lend him sufficient.

Because the goods of the Church are called the goods of the poor, and at these days nothing is less seen, than the poor to be sustained with the same; all parsons, vicars, … and other beneficed men within this deanery, … shall distribute hereafter among their poor parishioners, or other inhabitants there, in the presence of the churchwardens, or some other honest man of the parish, the fortieth part of the fruits and revenues of their said benefice lest they be worthily noted of ingratitude

The second part of all his revenues, which came yearly into his possession, and was included in the receipts of the exchequer, as we mentioned a little before, he, with ready devotion, gave to God, ordering his ministers to divide it carefully into four parts, on the condition that the first part should be discreetly bestowed on the poor

Even a poor man doesn't ask alms unless he sees you have the ability to give.

If all alms were given only from pity, all beggars would have starved long ago.

He who gives to the poor, lends to the Lord. But it may be said, not improperly, the Lord lends to us to give to the poor.

I don't know how your theology works, but if Jesus has a choice between stained glass windows and feeding starving kids in Haiti, I have a feeling he'd choose the starving kids in Haiti.

We can hardly call a beggar an obstacle to generosity.

Anyone who has two shirts when someone has none is not a christian.

The fact that people are poor or discriminated against doesn't necessarily endow them with any special qualities of justice, nobility, charity or compassion.

I often felt like I was walking around with this Scarlet Letter stitched to my chest from the way that people treated me.

There are many poor men and poor women: set apart some one constantly to remain there: let the poor man be though but as a guard to thy house: let him be to thee wall and fence, shield and spear. Where alms are, the devil dares not approach, nor any other evil thing.

They are Man's and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.

Give, if thou can, an alms; if not, a sweet and gentle word.

No matter how much you give a homeless person for tea... you never get that tea.

Let us contemplate the humility of the Son of God born into poverty. Let us imitate him by sharing with those who are weak.

Once leprosy had gone, and the figure of the leper was no more than a distant memory, these structures still remained. The game of exclusion would be played again, often in these same places, in an oddly similar fashion two or three centuries later. The role of the leper was to be played by the poor and by the vagrant, by prisoners and by the 'alienated', and the sort of salvation at stake for both parties in this game of exclusion is the matter of this study.

Kartik places a sovereign in the lady's cup, and I know that it's likely all he has. "Why did you do that?" I ask. He kicks a rock on the ground, balancing it nimbly between his feet like a ball. "She needed it." Father says it isn't good to give money to beggers. They'll only spend it unwisely on drink or other pleasures. "She might buy ale with it." He shrugs. "Then she'll have ale. It isn't the pound that matters; it's the hope...I know what it's like to fight for things that others take for granted.

Jesus said when the woman poured the alabaster bottle of perfume on him that was worth almost a year's wages, and Judas, who was very money-minded, said you shouldn't have done that, because you're wasting that, we could have sold that and given it to the poor. And Jesus himself said, you will always have the poor with you, but she has done this as an honor to me, and she will be honored for it all of her days. And so you never run out of poor people. You could give everything you had, I could give everything I had, and the world would still be full of poor people.

Be grateful that the poor man is there, so that by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself

It may here be observed, that all who are offended by us are exposed to our view. But the rich man sees Lazarus not with any other righteous man, but in Abraham's bosom. For Abraham was full of love, but the man is convicted of cruelty. Abraham sitting before his door followed after those that passed by, and brought them into his house, the other turned away even them that abode within his gate.

He learned that when people are very poor they still have something to give and the impulse to give it.