Giving makes you glad
Helping is not a sacrifice. From Epicurus to modern research, giving makes people happier.
- Laozi
- Epicurus
- Spinoza
- Fromm
- Tutu
A DO GOOD guide · 2,500 years of wisdom
How to DO GOOD
36 thinkers, from Confucius to today, on one question. Each with the line to remember, what it means, and a way to try it this week.
“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.”
Seneca
- Voices
- 36
- Years of thinking
- 2,500
- Chapters of history
- 6
- Big ideas
- 8
Eight big ideas
The ideas that keep coming back
Across 2,500 years and very different traditions, the same eight answers return. Pick one and follow it through history.
Goodness is practice
You become good by doing good, again and again. Start small, and start now.
- Buddha
- Aristotle
- Hillel
- Cicero
- Seneca
First, do no harm
Before any help comes the refusal to harm, exploit or humiliate anyone.
- Socrates
- Augustine
- Aquinas
- Schopenhauer
Help at eye level
Help so the other person keeps their dignity, their choices and their name.
- Confucius
- al-Ghazali
- Kant
- Buber
- Nussbaum
See the person
Doing good starts with not looking away from the person in front of you.
- Mencius
- Adam Smith
- Kierkegaard
- Levinas
- Weil
Quiet or seen?
Goodness on display stops being goodness. Good work still needs to invite others in.
- Epictetus
- Marcus Aurelius
- Arendt
Help that lasts
The best help ends the need for help, and cares for people not yet born.
- Maimonides
- Schweitzer
- Jonas
- Rawls
Help wisely
Ask what your help actually achieves, and send it where it does the most.
- Mozi
- Bentham
- Mill
- Singer
- MacAskill
Interactive timeline
One question, 2,500 years
Each dot is a thinker, in order of birth. Pick an idea and watch it travel across centuries and continents. Tap any dot for the full entry.
From Confucius to Martha Nussbaum: help so that the other person keeps their dignity, their choices and their name.
5 voices · Confucius (b. 551 BCE) to Nussbaum (b. 1947)
· about 2,497 years
- Greece & Rome
- India & China
- Faith & Middle Ages
- Early modern
- 20th century
- Today
Dots are evenly spaced so every name stays readable; break marks show the long gaps between births. Swipe sideways to see all 36.
The thread, oldest first
India & China551–479 BCE · China
Confucius
“What you do not want for yourself, do not do to others.”
Analects 15.24
What it means
The Golden Rule, some 500 years before the New Testament. Confucius calls it a rule to live by for a whole life. Analects 6.30 gives the active version: a humane person helps others reach the place where they themselves want to stand.
Try it today
Offer help the way you would want to receive it: clothes people can choose from instead of bags handed out, food served with eye contact and a hello.
Big idea: Help at eye level
All 36 voices
Who said what
Search by name or word, filter by chapter of history or by big idea, and open any card for what it means and how to try it today.
Showing 36 of 36
- India & China551–479 BCE
Confucius
China
“What you do not want for yourself, do not do to others.”
Help at eye level - India & Chinac. 6th–4th century BCE
Laozi
China
“The sage does not hoard. The more he does for others, the more he has. The more he gives to others, the more he gains.”
Giving makes you glad - India & Chinac. 5th century BCE
The Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama)
India
“Avoid all evil, cultivate the good, purify your mind: this is the teaching of the Buddhas.”
Goodness is practice - India & Chinac. 470–391 BCE
Mozi
China
“Regard other people’s states as your own, other people’s families as your own, other people’s persons as your own.”
Help wisely - Greece & Romec. 469–399 BCE
Socrates
Athens
“Doing wrong is worse than suffering wrong.”
First, do no harm - Greece & Rome384–322 BCE
Aristotle
Athens
“We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”
Goodness is practice - India & Chinac. 372–289 BCE
Mencius (Mengzi)
China
“Every person has a heart that cannot bear to see the suffering of others.”
See the person - Greece & Rome341–270 BCE
Epicurus
Athens
“It is more pleasant to do good than to receive it.”
Giving makes you glad - Faith & Middle Agesc. 110 BCE–10 CE
Hillel the Elder
Jerusalem
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”
Goodness is practice - Greece & Rome106–43 BCE
Cicero
Rome
“We are not born for ourselves alone.”
Goodness is practice - Greece & Romec. 4 BCE–65 CE
Seneca
Rome
“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.”
Goodness is practice - Greece & Romec. 50–135 CE
Epictetus
Rome & Nicopolis
“Never call yourself a philosopher … but act on your principles.”
Quiet or seen? - Greece & Rome121–180 CE
Marcus Aurelius
Rome
“You have done a good deed and someone has been helped. Why look for a third thing, as fools do: credit for it, or something in return?”
Quiet or seen? - Faith & Middle Ages354–430
Augustine of Hippo
North Africa
“Love, and do what you will.”
First, do no harm - Faith & Middle Ages1058–1111
al-Ghazali
Persia & Baghdad
In essenceIt is not the giver who does the receiver a favor, but the receiver who does the giver one.
Help at eye level - Faith & Middle Ages1138–1204
Moses Maimonides
Córdoba & Cairo
“The highest level is to support a person who has fallen on hard times with a gift, a loan, a partnership or a job, so that they no longer depend on others.”
Help that lasts - Faith & Middle Ages1225–1274
Thomas Aquinas
Italy & Paris
“Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.”
First, do no harm - Early modern1632–1677
Baruch Spinoza
Amsterdam
“The good that everyone who follows virtue wants for himself, he will also want for all other people.”
Giving makes you glad - Early modern1723–1790
Adam Smith
Scotland
“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others.”
See the person - Early modern1724–1804
Immanuel Kant
Königsberg
“Act so that you treat humanity, in your own person and in every other, always as an end and never merely as a means.”
Help at eye level - Early modern1748–1832
Jeremy Bentham
London
“It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.”
Help wisely - Early modern1788–1860
Arthur Schopenhauer
Germany
“Neminem laede, imo omnes, quantum potes, juva. Harm no one; rather, help everyone as much as you can.”
First, do no harm - Early modern1806–1873
John Stuart Mill
London
“In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility.”
Help wisely - Early modern1813–1855
Søren Kierkegaard
Copenhagen
“Our duty to love the people we see.”
See the person - 20th century1875–1965
Albert Schweitzer
Alsace & Gabon
“I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live.”
Help that lasts - 20th century1878–1965
Martin Buber
Vienna & Jerusalem
“All real living is meeting.”
Help at eye level - 20th century1900–1980
Erich Fromm
Frankfurt & New York
“Giving is more joyous than receiving, not because it is a deprivation …”
Giving makes you glad - 20th century1903–1993
Hans Jonas
Germany & New York
In essenceAct so that the effects of your actions keep genuine human life on Earth possible for the long run.
Help that lasts - 20th century1906–1975
Hannah Arendt
Germany & New York
In essenceGoodness can exist only as long as it goes unnoticed, even by the person doing it.
Quiet or seen? - 20th century1906–1995
Emmanuel Levinas
Lithuania & Paris
“I am responsible for the Other without waiting for reciprocity.”
See the person - 20th century1909–1943
Simone Weil
Paris
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
See the person - 20th century1921–2002
John Rawls
United States
In essenceFair rules are the ones we would choose without knowing which place in society we will get.
Help that lasts - TodayDesmond Tutu, 1931–2021
Ubuntu, as explained by Desmond Tutu
South Africa
“A person is a person through other persons.”
Giving makes you glad - Todayborn 1946
Peter Singer
Australia & Princeton
In essenceIf we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought to do it.
Help wisely - Todayborn 1947
Martha Nussbaum
United States
“What is each person able to do and to be?”
Help at eye level - Todayborn 1987
William MacAskill and effective altruism
Scotland & Oxford
In essenceUse evidence and reason to work out how to benefit others as much as possible, and act on it.
Help wisely
Thought lab
Think it through
Three famous thought experiments, made playable. There are no wrong answers here, only better reasons.
Maimonides · Egypt, c. 1180
The ladder of giving
Maimonides ranks giving in eight levels. The higher you climb, the more the gift protects the other person’s dignity. At the very top, it ends the need for help altogether.
“The highest level is to support a person who has fallen on hard times with a gift, a loan, a partnership or a job, so that they no longer depend on others.”
Mishneh Torah, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 10:7–14
Highest · most dignity
Lowest · still giving
Level 1 of 8
Make them independent
Support someone with a gift, a loan, a partnership or a job, so they no longer need help at all.
For example: Helping someone replace an ID and get to a job interview.
Put it into practice
From words to deeds
Find the idea that fits the way you already want to help, and check yourself before you share a good deed online.
Quiz · 5 questions
Which thinker walks with you?
Question 1 of 5
When you help, what feels best?
Marcus Aurelius · Kant · Arendt
Should I post it?
Goodness on display can stop being goodness, yet good work needs to be seen so others join in. Three questions help you decide.
Why do you want to share it?
Could anyone you helped be recognized?
Face, name, tattoo, belongings or exact location all count.
Answer the questions to see a suggestion.
Your turn
Your week of DO GOOD
Pick a few actions, each one taken from a thinker on this page. Start small: Aristotle would say the habit matters more than the size. Then share your plan to encourage others.
Plan wall
Plans from our community
Shared by visitors and published by the DO GOOD team with their permission.
Loading plans…
Sunday Service · Skid Row
We DO GOOD Together
Every Sunday at 10:00 AM, DO GOOD volunteers serve meals, clothing, socks and hygiene items at 5th & Towne in Skid Row, Los Angeles. Bring a friend, learn people’s names, and put one of these 36 ideas into practice.
Read 100 reasons to do goodSources
Where the lines come from
Lines from ancient and medieval texts are close renderings of the originals; wording differs between translations. Adam Smith, Bentham and Mill are quoted in their original English.
Lines marked “In essence” summarize a modern author’s argument. They are not direct quotes.
Two famous lines are missing on purpose. “Be the change you wish to see in the world” is not documented in Gandhi’s writings in that form, and “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” is not found in Edmund Burke’s.
Research on giving and happiness: Elizabeth Dunn, Lara Aknin and Michael Norton, “Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness,” Science 319 (2008), 1687–1688.
- Epicurus, quoted by Plutarch: That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible, ch. 15
- Epictetus: Handbook 46
- Marcus Aurelius: Meditations VII.73
- al-Ghazali: The Beneficiary as Benefactor, on the etiquettes of charity
- Maimonides: the eight levels, Gifts to the Poor 10:7–14
- Schopenhauer: Gerard Mannion, “Mitleid, Metaphysics and Morality”
- Kierkegaard: Works of Love, contents
- Arendt: The Human Condition, p. 74
- Levinas: Ethics and Infinity, p. 98, as cited in Levinas Studies
- Simone Weil: letter to Joë Bousquet, April 13, 1942
- Martha Nussbaum: Creating Capabilities (2011)
- William MacAskill: “Effective Altruism: Introduction” (2017)
- Desmond Tutu and ubuntu: background