Gratis

“ The individual who has done you a favour, for which it was impossible to arrange at the time a money payment, politely but firmly declines the gratuity which you think it right to send him in token of your obligation. ”

“ They had their meat from heaven on free-cost, for themselves and their families, and their raiment waxed not old upon them; so that they neither needed wages nor had reason to expect any. Freely you have received, freely give. The obligations we lie under, both in duty and interest, to serve God, should be sufficient to quicken us to our work, though we had not a reward in prospect. ”

“ So, back to the universities and colleges goes his conscience dollars.
“There’s B got his from the common laboring man that works with his hands and tools. How’s he to get some of the remorse fund back into their overalls?
“‘Aha!’ says B, ‘I’ll do it in the name of Education. I’ve skinned the laboring man,’ says he to himself, ‘but, according to the old proverb, “Charity covers a multitude of skins.”’
“So he puts up eighty million dollars’ worth of libraries; and the boys with the dinner pail that builds ’em gets the benefit. ”

“ And away with all these stipend-men and glebe-land men, augmentation men, [able bodied men provided money by the state directly of by legislation entitling them to collect money] gifts, fees and reward, &c.
42. Let no man, Priest nor Lawyer, have Tithes, augmentations, stipends, glebe lands, great fees, gifts and rewards, but if any one will preach or read the Law, let him do it freely, for God is a free God, and so are his people, and Christ is a free Christ, and offered himself freely. ”

“ I’ll see that you get a living allowance from—from a certain source every week. It’s not charity, d’you understand, not charity. It’s what you have a right to demand from society. You can consider me the agent of society. ”

“ Imagine a fellow like myself taught to regard card playing, the theater, and dancing as mortal sins, with a father who believed in infant damnation and predestination; a fellow brought up to gaze in silent admiration at Charles Sumner; and who was allowed a silver half-dollar a week pocket money—imagine me, I say, sitting out there with this free-thinking, free-hating, free-handed slave owner! ”

“ I might argue for my comfort that there was greater liberty in being a free lance, but how wonderful to do work that an editor wanted every week, was willing to pay for every week!—wonderful to me, anyway, who had just had my first taste of earning an income, but not of earning it regularly and without fail. ”

“ But let me say, just here, that my experience with boys and girls forbids free use of money. As soon as they reach a proper age, they should have, if possible, an allowance, and be obliged to keep account of every penny of it. ”

“ You are as free as any other citizen to spend your spare money in any legitimate way you please, and as your political principles or your public spirit may suggest, provided you do not violate the above quoted provision of law either directly or indirectly. ”

“ SIMPLICITY. I'll tell thee, my lad. Come hither: if thou wilt be ruled by me, thou shalt pay nothing; I'll give it thee, if thou wilt dwell with me; and, I promise thee, this counsel is for thy prefarmin'. [243] Hadst not thou better serve a freeman of the City, and learn a trade to live another day, than to be a serving-boy in thy youth, and to have no occupation in thine age. I can make thee free, if thou wilt be my prentice.
WEALTH. Why, Wealth is free everywhere: what need I serve you? My lord is a freeman, if that may do me good. ”

“ Perhaps a subscription might be set on foot by some charitable souls, to enable them to pay their voyage home? How humiliating for these brave-hearted folks, who had always lived by their labor and never held out a begging hand, to come down so low as to be the recipients of charity! ”

“ We look at these big freeholds, and money in bank is a little thing. On Washington Street, and down behind the Dabney House--don't we each alike seek the same thing? We want life, and more life. We want to be happy, and we want to be free. Well--we know it's hard to win these prizes when we're poor, but is it so easy when we're rich? To live shut off on a little island, calling the rest common and unclean--is that being happy and free, is it having life abundantly? I look around, and don't find it so. ”

“ What is the freedom of the most free? ”

“ I should like you, if there is no objection, to pay for the stuff at your ordinary space-rate, and hand the money to some charity which does not devote itself to bullying people, if you know of any such. ”

“ Free, as being, by the general practice and habits of the virtues, free from the dominion of vice; and particularly by the practice of industry and frugality, free from debt, which exposes a man to constraint, and a species of slavery to his creditors. ”

“ If you will undertake to let the young man know that he is free, and to tell him that you were employed to compound for the debt by some one whom you are not at liberty to name, you will not only do me a service, but may do him one, and his sister also.’
‘The last reason, sir,’ said Plornish, ‘would be quite sufficient. ”

“ They will ask you if you have seen such a man as I am, and they will tell you that you may earn a large reward by giving such information as may deliver me into the hands of justice; but what reward—what sum of money would pay you for your child's life? ”

“ To contract he opposes gift, free-gift, or grace, where there is no mutual transference of right, but one party transfers in the hope of gaining friendship or service from another, or the reputation of charity and magnanimity, or deliverance from the merited pain of compassion, or reward in heaven. ”

“ You had little more responsibility than my mules.
“’But now all that is changed. Being free men, you assume the responsibilities of free men. You sell me your labor, I pay you money, and with that money you provide for yourselves. You must look out for your own clothes and food, and the wants of your children. If I advance these things for you, I shall charge them to you, for I cannot give them like I once did, now I pay you wages. ”

“ We are credibly informed, that neither the officers of the lord primate in preparing the report of his grace's opinion, nor those of the great-seal in passing the patent for briefs, will remit any of their fees, both which do amount to a considerable sum: and thus the good intentions of well-disposed people are in a great measure disappointed, a large part of their charity being anticipated and alienated by fees and gratuities. ”

“ I pay in money always, but they prefer to make excuses of illness to me, and slip off and work for my neighbor who pays in cards redeemable only in his store, because it is done on the sly and in opposition to my authority—in other words, that is freedom. ”

“ The feeling of responsibility engendered in children or young people by trusting them with a definite amount of money for certain general purposes, can scarcely fail of a happy result. It binds them to a performance of duty while it confers, at the same time, a delicious sense of freedom. An allowance for necessities gives its recipient liberty of choice in expenditure, but the choice must be judicious or the recipient suffers. ”

“ But I must give over my labors, for, what with printing bills, coach-fare, and other expenses, every lecture I deliver in any neighboring town, costs me a sovereign, and I can not afford to ride my hobby such a rate.” He said, “You must not give over your labors; God has blessed them with success; He has blessed you with talents, and me with wealth, if you give your time, I ought to give my money. ”

“ I will pay back what I took from my clients to the very last farthing. And anything that is left over shall be given in charity to the poor. What do you say to that? We shall keep nothing for ourselves—nothing. ”

“ I verily believe that if we had offered to take money from all the people we have visited, instead of asking them to bestir themselves to gain their own freedom, our morning would have been a triumphant success. ”

“ And pray, Sir, where is the difference between the supposed case of your servant, and that of a minister or place-man extracting perquisites from the money of the public? The public are your masters, and it is with your master’s money that you thus make free ”

“ Had my opinion been asked, relative to the disposal of their money, I would have recommended them to give one-tenth, or perhaps a little more, of the sums they had been earning, to their Saviour, and to keep the rest to buy their books. The giving of not less than one-tenth of all you earn, for charitable purposes, is the principle which I wish to have impressed fully on your minds, and I hope you will grow up under the influence of this principle, and never, never depart from it. ”

“ As people read on in one of my articles in the Post, they cannot be kept from seeing how egregiously I am enjoying my work. Anybody can see it—that I would pay up to the limit all the money I can get hold of—my own, or anybody's—to get other people to enjoy reading my stuff as much as I do. Nobody seems inclined to deny that if I could afford to—or, if I had to—I would pay ten cents a word to practically any man, to get him to read what I write. ”

“ What a man gives, he gives, but what a man lends, he lends expecting to be repaid! A beggar may be under endless obligation, but a debtor who cannot pay is a slave! He may be God’s free man all the while—that depends on causes and conditions, but not the less is he his fellow’s slave! ”

“ This service is not always rendered to the one from whom this money is received, but often to society in general. In fact, most of the blessings which we receive come to us in such a way that we cannot distinguish the donors and must make our return to the whole public. If one is not compelled to work for himself he has the larger pleasure of working for the public. ”

“ But we pay too high. Why do you ask so much for so little? Will you condemn us for our youth, our ignorance? Why must we pay? Why should we pay—with those years and years and endless years of sorrow? If I say that I will not pay—what then? ”

“ Then I delivered myself of some of my pet theories about wealth. I told him that I didn’t believe that any man had a right to money unless he earned it in return for service given to society, and I said that as society had to supply the money, society should determine the amount. ”

“ I cannot but add likewise my earnest wish that you would be induced, after you have indulged your liberality in your presents to your friends, to give the work to the public, and to derive from it the profit to which you are so justly entitled. ”

“ After all, my life had been lived at the expense of Society, and Society had a right to collect her debt before taking me back. A curious thing, this life. No act ever seems to go for nothing, good or bad. ”

“ Being this day become once again a free man in every respect, I mean but that of my obligation to you and the rest of my friends, to whom I stand indebted for my being so, I think it but a reasonable part of my duty to pay you and them my thanks for it in a body ”

“ And if they are thus instructed, that there is no true charity without self denial, they will gain more than they are called upon to give: For the suppression of one luxury for a charitable purpose, is the exercise of two virtues, and this without any pecuniary expense. ”

“ I am glad, therefore, that provision is made by law for those who are unable to help themselves. Private charity, in many places, does a great deal; and if there were no poor-laws, would do a great deal more. ”

“ It is a fixed charge upon the lives of those who sit above the salt. It has a right to insist upon full payment. "To whom much is given, of him will much be required."
It is for every man to ask himself: "How much do I eat up in my generous mode of life? ”

“ Availing himself of the freedom of a young man plentifully supplied with money for the first time in his life, he had made use of all the resources with which strange and exciting cities could furnish him to get back his zest in light-heartedness. ”

“ That more discreditable methods are daily practised by those who live to get money, than are resorted to by those who without money are nevertheless under the necessity of living. If this proposition be assented to—as, in truth, I know not how it can be gainsaid,—nothing need be urged in vindication of my art of free living. ”

“ To be free is the property of an agent, who is possessed of powers and faculties, as much as to be cunning, valiant, bountiful, or zealous. But these qualities are the properties of persons, and not the properties of properties. ”

“ His heart is in his work, and for this no equivalent is possible; what is accepted is in the nature of a fee, gratuity, or consideration, which enables him who receives it to maintain a certain expected mode of life. ”