Michael Franti Quotes

The exercise of benevolence is joy to loving hearts: the more pain it costs, the more joy it is. Kind actions make us happy, and in such joy we find communion with the great heart of Jesus.

Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.

True charity occurs only when there are no notions of giving, giver, or gift.

Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.

This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.

I'd rather have happiness than money. People ask for it. Sometimes when I don't have it. I make other people's problems my problem because they want me to; they ask me to.

You've got to give away what you love.

Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away.

There is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving.

This is what is hardest: to close the open hand because one loves.

To give and then not feel that one has given is the very best of all ways of giving.

Take without forgetting, and give without remembering.

If you really want to receive joy and happiness, then serve others with all your heart. Lift their burden, and your own burden will be lighter.

God wants you to live for others and to live that presence well.

Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward.

We tire of those pleasures we take, but never of those we give.

I am very happy because I have loved the world and not myself.

For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

Whoever labors for the happiness of those he loves elevates himself, no matter whether he works in the dreary shop or the perfumed field.

Off with you! You're a happy fellow, for you'll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that!

The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.

To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

There's no greater source of happiness than giving yourself to other people.

It's such a magnificent thing to be able to love someone and expect nothing from them.