PERSONAL NOTE: Giving Tree

"Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind [...]; it is out selfishness which overrates it. [...] I would not subtract any thing from the praise that is due to philanthropy, but merely demand justice for all who be their lives and works are a blessing to mankind. I do not value cheifly a man's uprightness and benevolence, which are, as it were, his stem and leaves. Those plants of whose greenless withered we make herb tea for the sick, serve but a humble use, and are most employed by quacks. I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse. His goodness must not be a partial and transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him nothing and of which he is unconscious. this is a charity that hides a multitude of sins. the philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own cast-of griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. we should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion."

- Henry David Thoreau, Walden