Rich people can be generous, even the ones with bloodcurdling political views can be generous, but most believe in generosity on their own terms, and underneath (not so deep, either), they’re always afraid someone is going to steal their presents and eat their birthday cake.
Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe.
What do we look for in a lord? Strength, generosity, hardness, and success, and why should a man not be proud of those things?
Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.
It is so easy a thing to give — only great men have the courage and courtesy and, yes, the generosity to receive.
Generosity wins favour for every one, especially when it is accompanied by modesty.
Generosity is nothing else than a craze to possess. All which I abandon, all which I give, I enjoy in a higher manner through the fact that I give it away; giving is a keen, brief enjoyment, almost sexual. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives.