Do not ask me for charity now: Go away until your bones are clean.

-Adcock, (Karen) Fleur
  Selected Poems,'Advice to a Discarded Lover'.

   Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and havenotcharity,Iam becomeassounding brass, ora tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all mygoodstofeed thepoor, and though Igivemy body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not herown, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Corinthians13:1^13.

And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Peter 4:8.

Charity isthepowerofdefending that whichwe know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.

-Chesterton, G(ilbert) K(eith)
  Heretics, ch.12.

I have but one request to make at my departure from this world, it isöthe charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives, dare now vindicate them, let no prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them rest in obscurity and peace! Let my memory be left in oblivion, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justicetomycharacter.Whenmycountry takesher place among thenations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.

-Emmet, Robert
  Speech before being sentenced.

Vere magnus est, qui magnam habet caritatem. He is truly great who has great charity.

-Kempis, StThomas a'
c.1413  De Imitatione Christi, bk.1, ch.4, section 6.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

-Lincoln, Abraham
  Second inaugural address, 4 Mar, a month before the end of the Civil War.

Qu'est-ce qu'une charite¤   qui n'a point de pudeur avec le mise¤  rable, et qui, avant de le soulager, commence par e¤  craser son amour-propre. What is that charity worth which does not spare the wretched person's feelings, which instead, before providing comfort, beginsby wiping out hisself-esteem.

-Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de
La vie de Marianne, ch.14.

This having learnt, thou hast attained the sum Of wisdom; hope no higher, though all the stars Thou knew'st by name, and all th'ethereal powers, All secrets of the deep, all nature's works, Or works of God in heav'n, air, earth, or sea, And all the riches of this world enjoy'dst, And all the rule, one empire; onlyadd Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add faith, Add virtue, patience, temperance, add love, By name to come called charity, the soul Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess A paradise within thee, happier far.

-Milton,John
  Michael to  Adam. Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.12, l.575^87.

In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is charity.

-Pope, Alexander
  An Essay on Man, epistle 3, l.307^8.

Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

-Roosevelt, Franklin D(elano)
  Renomination acceptance speech, Philadelphia, 27 Jun.

One might lay down as a postulate: All conceptions of God whichare incompatible with themovement of pure charity are false.

-Weil, Simone
Letter to a Priest (translated byA F Wills, published1954).

Women know the damnation of charity because the habit of civilisation has always been to throw them cheap alms rather than give them good wages.

-West, Dame Rebecca formerly  Cecily Isabel Fairfield
  'The Personal ServiceAssociation:Work for Idle Hands to Do', in The Clarion,13 Dec.

Charity, dear Miss Prism, charity! None of us are perfect. I myself am peculiarly susceptible to draughts.

-Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills
  Dr Chasuble.The Importance of Being Earnest, act 2.