Quote

I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: 'What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.'

— Joseph Addison

Sentiment: POSITIVE

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✓Similar Perspectives

Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.

— Orson Scott Card

The glory that goes with wealth is fleeting and fragile; virtue is a possession glorious and eternal.

— Sallust

Lest when I am gone you may be at a loss for an epitaph for me, let me give you one - He Fed Fevers.

— Robert James Graves

To be here recovers from a state of soul, from a state of mind. I have the memory of the heart. I know what I received. I must have the will to give back to others.

— Jacky Ickx

Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.

— C. S. Lewis

As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of prosperity.

— Simon Newcomb

There is nothing left to me but honor, and my life, which is saved.

— Francis I

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. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

✗Opposing Perspectives

For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished freedom is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while there was still time.

— George Sutherland

What we gave, we have; What we spent, we had; What we left, we lost.

— Tryon Edwards