Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“The essence of generosity is self-sacrifice.”
- Source
- Thrift
- Date
- 1875
Meaning of “The essence of generosity is self-sacrifice.”
Generosity becomes meaningful when giving costs something real—time, resources, comfort, or attention—rather than functioning only as effortless display.
Where does it come from?
Thrift, Preface; original Preface dated London, November 1875, verified in Project Gutenberg #14418’s represented John Murray Fiftieth Thousand witness (London, 1892). “The essence of generosity is self-sacrifice” immediately follows Smiles’s claim that justice and generosity require self-denial. This collection preserves the Victorian ethical argument rather than treating the maxim as a complete modern definition of generosity.
