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Who really said it

Charity begins at home

Not the Bible — an English proverb Sir Thomas Browne 1605–1682 · English physician & author — first known to print the phrase, and against it
Disputed Free to reuse

No verse of the King James Bible contains this sentence — a KJV keyword search for “charity begins” returns nothing, and the nearest text, 1 Timothy 5:8, says something different. Its earliest known printing in this exact wording is Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici, Part the Second, Sect. 4 — printed without his consent in 1642, authorised in 1643 — where Browne quotes it as “the voice of the world” and then argues against it.

Last verified 27 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Charity begins at home” is not a Bible verse — no King James verse contains the phrase. Its earliest known printing in this wording is Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, Part the Second, Sect. 4 (printed without his consent in 1642; authorised edition 1643), where Browne quotes it as "the voice of the world" and argues against it. Source: Quotle.info. · Verbatim: “Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world; yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were his own executioner.”

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to the Bible. Use the credit shown above instead.

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In context

Evoking the world of Sir Thomas Browne — English physician, polymath & author. Theme: "Charity begins at home". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Charity begins at home". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The earliest known printing

Work
Religio Medici, Part the Second, Sect. 4
Author
Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682)
Published
Printed without the author’s consent in 1642; first authorised edition 1643. Text below from the 1682 edition, the last in his lifetime.
Status in the text
Quoted by Browne as “the voice of the world” — a proverb already in circulation, which he rejects.

But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? “Charity begins at home,” is the voice of the world; yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were his own executioner. Religio Medici, Part the Second, Sect. 4

The proverb returns in the next section, where Browne writes that dying for a friend “seems strange to vulgar affections and such as confine themselves within that worldly principle, ‘Charity begins at home.’”

Full text, 1682 edition
Religio Medici at Project Gutenberg
Religio Medici, Part the Second — full text

How we verified this

  • Before the modern wording. Phrase Finder traces the idea to John Wyclif’s Of Prelates (1382), “Charite schuld bigyne at hem-self,” and the first pairing of charity with home to John Marston’s play Histrio-Mastix, published 1610 (Phrase Finder ↗).
  • 1642/1643 — into print. Browne’s Religio Medici carries the sentence in Part the Second, Sect. 4; the Project Gutenberg text, taken from the 1682 edition, notes that the first genuine edition appeared in 1643 after the book had been “surreptitiously printed” (full text ↗). Wikiquote’s sourced entry cites it to Religio Medici (1643), Part II, Section 4 (Wikiquote ↗).
  • The Bible check. No King James verse contains the phrase; the closest, 1 Timothy 5:8, reads “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Timothy 5, KJV ↗).
  • The Terence trail. The classical credit comes from a translator’s note, not from Terence: Henry T. Riley’s footnote to a line of the Andria calls it “Equivalent to our sayings, ‘Charity begins at home;’ ‘Take care of number one’” (Riley’s Terence ↗).
Public domain

Religio Medici was printed in 1642 and issued in an authorised edition in 1643; the text quoted here is the 1682 edition, the last published in Browne’s lifetime. All are far earlier than 1931, and the work is in the public domain in the United States — the Project Gutenberg edition linked above is distributed on that basis. The proverb itself, as an anonymous English saying, carries no owner.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Where the credits go wrong

Two attributions dominate: Scripture, and the Roman playwright Terence. Neither survives contact with the texts.

the Bible In no verse

A King James keyword search for “charity begins” returns no results. The passage usually meant is 1 Timothy 5:8 — “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” — a command about providing for dependants, not the proverb (1 Timothy 5, KJV ↗).

Terence A translator's gloss

Quote sites credit Terence’s Andria. What Terence’s character actually says, in Henry T. Riley’s literal English version, is “Look you, I am the most concerned in my own interests” — and it is Riley’s own footnote, not Terence, that calls this “Equivalent to our sayings, ‘Charity begins at home;’ ‘Take care of number one’” (Riley’s Terence, footnote 75 ↗). Quote/Counterquote makes the same point about this footnote seeding the credit (Quote/Counterquote ↗).

Sir Thomas Browne Quoting, not coining

Browne is the earliest writer known to print the modern wording, but he attributes it to everybody: it is “the voice of the world,” and in the next section “that worldly principle” — a view he sets himself against (Religio Medici, Part the Second ↗).

An anonymous English proverb, already current when Sir Thomas Browne put it into print in Religio Medici to disagree with it — not Scripture, and not Terence (Wikiquote, sourced ↗).

Context

A proverb that says the opposite of what its most famous printing meant

“Charity begins at home” is normally deployed to close a door: look after your own before you look after strangers. The sentence’s first known appearance in print does exactly the reverse. In Religio Medici, Browne sets it up as a saying he is about to knock down — “But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? ‘Charity begins at home,’ is the voice of the world” — and a section later he dismisses those “as confine themselves within that worldly principle” when weighing whether a man might lay down his life for a friend.

The Bible credit is a category error rather than a translation quirk. Scripture does contain a related instruction — 1 Timothy 5:8, in the King James wording, warns against the man who “provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house” — but that is a duty of provision, not the modern proverb, and no King James verse uses the phrase. The English saying seems to have grown up alongside the idea rather than out of any single verse.

“Charity begins at home” is the voice of the world — Browne’s phrase for a view he did not share.

What Browne actually argues in the surrounding pages

Sect. 4 of Part the Second opens on self-love as the thing everyone condemns and everyone practises, and moves from there to the complaint “that charity grows cold.” The proverb arrives as evidence for the prosecution: the world says charity begins at home, “yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were his own executioner.”

In Sect. 5 the phrase returns explicitly as a limit on friendship: laying down one’s life for a friend, Browne writes, “seems strange to vulgar affections and such as confine themselves within that worldly principle, ‘Charity begins at home.’” Both passages are in the 1682 text, the last edition published in his lifetime.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

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Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Religio Medici — full text (Part the Second, Sect. 4)gutenberg.org

The 1682 edition text, the last published in Browne's lifetime; contains both the Sect. 4 passage and the Sect. 5 reprise of the proverb.
Thomas Browne — sourced quotationsen.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote's sourced entry, citing the line to Religio Medici (1643), Part II, Section 4.
Charity begins at home — meaning & originphrases.org.uk

Phrase Finder's origin note: Wyclif (1382), Marston's Histrio-Mastix (1610), and Browne as first to print the modern form.
The Comedies of Terence, tr. Henry T. Rileygutenberg.org

The translator's footnote to Andria, Act IV, Sc. 1 that glosses a line of Terence as equivalent to 'Charity begins at home' — the root of the Terence credit.
1 Timothy 5 (King James Version)biblegateway.com

The nearest scriptural text, verses 4 and 8, for comparison with the proverb.
charity begins at home — dictionary entryen.wiktionary.org

Defines the proverb and dates its illustrative quotation to Browne's Religio Medici, 1643.

First in print — and unconvinced

The doctor who quoted the proverb in order to disagree with it

Sir Thomas Browne

1605–1682 · English physician, polymath & author

Sir Thomas Browne was an English polymath and author whose works range across science, medicine, religion and the esoteric. Religio Medici — “the religion of a physician” — was his first and most celebrated book: he never meant to publish it, an unauthorised printing appeared in 1642, and he issued an authorised edition in 1643. He is the first writer known to have put “Charity begins at home” into print, which is not the same as coining it: he quotes it as a saying everyone already used, and calls it, a page later, that worldly principle.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Religio Medici, Part the Second, Sect. 4

Browne, Thomas. Religio Medici, Part the Second, Sect. 4. London, 1643 (first printed without the author's consent, 1642); text quoted from the 1682 edition, the last in Browne's lifetime, as reproduced in Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend, Project Gutenberg ebook no. 586.

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Charity begins at home’?” Last verified 27 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/charity-begins-at-home/

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