charity begins at home

Charite schuld bigyne at hem-self.
[c 1383 in Wyclif English Works (EETS) 78]

Charity and beating begins at home.
[a 1625 Beaumont & Fletcher Wit without Money v. ii.]

Charity begins, but doth not end, at home. ‥My Church-History‥began with our own Domestick affairs. ‥I intended‥to have proceeded to forrain Churches.
[1659 T. Fuller Appeal of Injured Innocence i. 25]

The world would do nothing for her if she should come to want—charity begins at home.
[1748 Smollett Roderick Random I. vi.]

With her, as with a great many of her sex, charity began at homeliness and did not generally progress much farther.
[1910 ‘Saki’ Reginald in Russia 2]

‘You know Aunt Emma never gives anybody a complimentary ticket. If she did,‥there'd be no money raised for charity.’ ‘I thought charity began at home.’
[1985 C. Macleod Plain Old Man xiv.]

True, charity begins at home, but it shouldn't end there.
[1996 Washington Post 30 July C16]

Related to: charity; home

Bibliography of major proverb collections and works cited from modern editions is available here.

Be generous to your family before helping others. For example, She spends hours and hours on volunteer work and neglects the children, forgetting that charity begins at home. This proverb was first recorded in English, in slightly different form, in John Wycliffe's Of Prelates (c. 1380); "Charity should begin at himself."