When you share your last crust of bread with a beggar, you mustn't behave as if you were throwing a bone to a dog. You must give humbly, and thank him for allowing you to have a part in his hunger.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Dogs give us something just as we give something to them.
Obviously, you would give your life for your children, or give them the last biscuit on the plate. But to me, the trick in life is to take that sense of generosity between kin, make it apply to the extended family and to your neighbour, your village and beyond.
It is not from your own goods that you give to the beggar; it is a portion of his own that you are restoring to him. The Earth belongs to all. So you are paying back a debt and think you are making a gift to which you are not bound.
The Lord only knows how many times I let my children go hungry rather than take secretly the bread I liked not to ask for.
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
If beggars do not hate the rest of us, they are even more abject than I had imagined.
How can you satisfy your hunger while your neighbor is spending the night hungry?
It is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let him suffer from hunger when one has a chance of coming to his assistance.
A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.
Does not the gratitude of the dog put to shame any man who is ungrateful to his benefactors?