Keeping books on social aid is capitalistic nonsense. I just use

“Keeping books on social aid is capitalistic nonsense. I just use the money for the poor. I can’t stop to count it.” Thus spoke Eva Perón, the First Lady of Argentina, known to her people as Evita, the saint of the slums, the mother of the humble. In this fierce and unyielding declaration, she laid bare her creed — that compassion must be swift, that mercy should never be tangled in the cold machinery of calculation. Her words, raw and radiant, come not from the ledger of an economist, but from the beating heart of a woman who saw suffering not as a statistic, but as a cry to be answered. In her defiance of bureaucracy, she spoke for every soul who has ever chosen kindness over procedure, action over accounting, and love over law.

The origin of this quote lies in the days of Evita’s stewardship of the Fundación Eva Perón, a vast charitable organization she established in the late 1940s to aid the destitute, the orphaned, and the forgotten. Argentina at that time was a nation of sharp contrasts — wealth and privilege in the hands of a few, poverty and desperation in the hearts of many. Evita, rising from humble beginnings herself, became the living bridge between those two worlds. Her foundation dispensed food, medicine, housing, and even scholarships, often by her own hand. When critics accused her of mismanagement and lack of accountability, she answered not with apology but with conviction: “I can’t stop to count it.” To her, counting was a luxury; feeding the hungry was a moral command.

Her words embody a profound tension — the eternal conflict between the head and the heart, between efficiency and empathy. In calling record-keeping “capitalistic nonsense,” Evita was not rejecting organization, but the spirit of detachment that so often accompanies it. She saw in the cold mathematics of charity an insult to the sacredness of need. To her, every peso counted was a moment lost, every calculation a delay in easing pain. The urgency of human suffering, she believed, could not wait upon ledgers and audits. Her charity was not systematic; it was visceral, direct, and deeply personal — the kind of giving that does not measure what it gives because it gives of itself.

This spirit recalls the wisdom of the ancients, who taught that true generosity does not seek to balance the scales. The widow’s mite, said the scriptures, was worth more than the gold of kings, for she gave from her poverty. In Evita’s Argentina, this truth lived again. Her palace became a refuge for beggars, her days consumed by pleas and prayers from those who saw her as their last hope. She moved among them like a whirlwind — embracing, blessing, and giving until she herself was spent. And though her methods angered the elite and bewildered the bureaucrats, her people understood: she was not managing wealth; she was redistributing love.

Yet there is also a shadow in her words, one that history must acknowledge. Passion, unchecked by prudence, can lead to waste; emotion, untempered by structure, can be exploited. The very foundation that bore her name was accused, after her death, of corruption and chaos. But even in these failings, her essence remains unbroken — for Evita was not an accountant of the state; she was a priestess of compassion. Her legacy reminds us that perfection in administration means little if the hungry remain unfed, that a world obsessed with counting has often forgotten to care. Her fire was not the careful flame of reason, but the consuming blaze of faith.

The lesson, then, is not to abandon order, but to remember the purpose of order. Books and ledgers are necessary, but they are not holy. The true measure of charity lies not in balance sheets, but in the lives restored and the dignity rekindled. Evita’s words call us to act with urgency — to give when the moment demands, to love without waiting for permission. In an age where compassion is often suffocated beneath systems, she reminds us that the heart must remain sovereign over the hand.

So, my children, learn this truth from the Lady of Argentina: give without fear, act without delay, love without counting. Do not let your compassion be paralyzed by perfection. When you see need, answer it; when you see pain, heal it. The world does not change through the calculations of the cautious, but through the reckless mercy of the brave. Evita’s words, spoken in the heat of her mission, echo through the ages as a sacred rebellion — a reminder that generosity, like faith, is not meant to be measured, but lived.