My giving story started with my parents – my late mother, Frances Arrillaga, who dedicated her life to philanthropic and community service, and my father, John Arrillaga, whose daily generosity of heart, mind, and hands-on contributions make him one of the most extraordinary philanthropists I know.
As much as I loved the model of St. Francis, I realized that I couldn’t afford to be poor, because unlike St. Francis, I’m not celibate. I was enlightened that God’s call to me was not poverty but generosity and simplicity. And I had to go back to the lesson I learned from my parents: that is, simplicity.
My father died when I was nine and a half. We were on relief for two years. They call it welfare now, but it was relief then… I never forgot the generosity of New York.
I knew how it was with drunks. They ran out of generosity, even for themselves.
This generosity that has been offered to the United States says very much about the Venezuelan spirit.
To find gratitude and generosity when you could reasonably find hurt and resentment will surprise you. It will be so surprising because you will see so much of the opposite: people who have much more than others yet who react with anger when one advantage is lost or with resentment when an added gift is denied.
Knowing that more people associate Chicago with street violence than generosity is difficult for me because, despite all my proclamations of being from the Bay Area, I have spent much of my life in Chicago. So I have a deep love and a pretty good understanding of the city.
Curiosity endows the people who have it with a generosity in argument and a serenity in their own mode of life which springs from their cheerful willingness to let life take the form it will.
It is now for the Catholic Church to bend herself to her work with calmness and generosity. It is for you to observe her with renewed and friendly attention.
What we call generosity is for the most part only the vanity of giving; and we exercise it because we are more fond of that vanity than of the thing we give.
Alfred Nobel stipulated that no distinction of race or colour will determine who received of his generosity.
Virtues, like viruses, have their seasons of contagion. When catastrophe strikes, generosity spikes like a fever. Courage spreads in the face of tyranny.
Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.
The U.N.’s humanitarian agencies rely on charitable donations from the public as well as the generosity of governments to continue their lifesaving work in response to natural disasters, armed conflicts and other emergencies.
