Literary notes about donor (AI summary)
The term “donor” has been employed in literature to denote not only an act of giving but also the symbolic weight of benefaction and its attendant social or moral implications. In some works the donor is portrayed as a figure of divine or virtuous generosity—as seen with references to God's providence in [1] and [2]—invoking a sense of benevolent fate. In other texts, the term is imbued with social commentary, critiquing the act of giving and the expectations it engenders, as when Nietzsche muses on the seductive power and the pretensions of the donor in [3], [4], and [5]. The word also appears in more mundane, yet historically resonant, contexts—from charitable contributions in architectural patronage in [6], [7], and [8] to the transactional and sometimes ironic undertones evident in [9] and [10]. Even in a personal or sentimental framework, as with the reflective tone found in [11] and [12], “donor” captures a spectrum of meanings, underlining the complex interplay between generosity, authority, and social expectation throughout literary traditions.
- God bless the donor, and the receiver too!
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson - So they drank this pleasant, this sweet water; and such it seemed to be, as might well be expected where God was the donor.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus - The desire is to make all good things that happen to one appear as though they had been done to one: people will have a donor.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche - —There is such a want of generosity in always posing as the donor and benefactor, and showing one's face when doing so!
— from The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - The Donor's Modesty.
— from The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - The donor was probably unconscious of the remarkable excellence of this particular position as a site for a conspicuous architectural object.
— from Toronto of Old by Henry Scadding - Mr. Dunn, named above as donor of an organ to the second St. James', had provided the previous wooden church with Communion Plate.
— from Toronto of Old by Henry Scadding - By the donor to the public of the land occupied by the street, it was designated Park Lane—not without due consideration, as is likely.
— from Toronto of Old by Henry Scadding - And at the rate of that handsome sum of money per annum, and at no higher rate, you are to live until the donor of the whole appears.
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - The proposed maker of the plates has named Pg 146 a price which the donor declares to be absurd.
— from Amusements in Mathematics by Henry Ernest Dudeney - Miss Winchelsea hoped that some day Mr. Senoks might take up that slim book and think for a moment of the donor.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. Wells - The gift is even claimable under other circumstances than the donor’s getting married.
— from British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes
