“We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.”
Tennessee Williams

“To love another person is to see the face of God.”
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Consider Williams’ and Hugo’s quotes the two opposite ends of the philanthropy spectrum. At the one extreme you have complete isolation from your conspecifics: a dreadful state of affairs, in which you feel so alienated from your fellow man that you cannot fathom finding solace in his company. But the closer you near the other extreme, the better you will realize that we are all interconnected – a whole comprised of seven billion or so parts, each connected by heart strings.

An actual twitter exchange between Neil deGrasse Tyson and Norm Macdonald further illustrates this point. In 2019 the award-winning astrophysicist tweeted this:

In response, the guy who played Frank in Billy Madison tweeted this:

We present the following collection of quotes about helping others so you can become more like Victor Hugo and Norm MacDonald.

Quotes About Helping Others and Kindness

 

Ronald Reagan Quote on Helping Others

 

“Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.”
– Ronald Reagan

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson Quote on Helping Others

 

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
 Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Booker T. Washington Quote on Helping Others

 

“Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.”
– Booker T. Washington

 

Charles Dickens Quote on Helping others

 

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
– Charles Dickens

 

Dalai Lama Quote on Helping Others

 

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”
– Dalai Lama

 

Jane Goodall Quote on Helping Others

 

“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
– Jane Goodall

 

Edith Wharton Quote on Helping Others

 

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
– Edith Wharton

 

Steve Jobs Quotes on Helping Others

 

“People who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
– Steve Jobs

 

Anne Frank Quote on Helping Others

 

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
Anne Frank