While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve spirits [of the dead]?...While you do not know life, how can you know about death?
Confucius The Confucian Analects
Categories: service

Great services are not canceled by one act or by one single error.
Benjamin Disraeli
Categories: service

Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favours you have received.
Seneca
Categories: service

Sow good services; sweet remembrances will grow them.
Madame de Stael
Categories: service

I've come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that's as unique as a fingerprint - and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.
Oprah Winfrey O Magazine, September 2002
Categories: service

Be alert to give service. What counts a great deal in life is what we do for others.
Anonymous
Categories: service

They also serve who only stand and wait.
John Milton The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation
Categories: service prayer

We need to stretch beyond our boundaries, step out a familiar territory, stop nursing emptiness and self-indulgence. Loneliness is looking for something to fill a void. Joy is expanding so that others want to share our lives.
Joyce Sequichie Hifler A Cherokee Feast of Days: Daily Meditations
Categories: service joy volunteering

I am only one; but I am still one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.
Helen Keller Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: action responsibility service

What is the use of living if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone.
Winston Churchill A Mind Like His: Developing the Character of Christ
Categories: service volunteerism vision

Sometimes you gotta create what you want to be a part of.
Geri Weitzman The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations
Categories: action service leadership

Better to light a candle then to curse the darkness.
Chinese proverb The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations
Categories: action service volunteerism

When a fruit tree ceases to bear its fruit, it is dying. And it is even so with man.
Elmer H. Bobst "Man is Like a Fruit Tree" by Elmer H. Bobst,
Categories: actions service achievement

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us. What we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.
Albert Pine The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: service ministry volunteerism

It requires humility to stop moving and shaking long enough to be present to people. To allow someone to pull you in on the tractor beam of their gaze is to submit to that person. Taking long enough to hear the details of the whole truth impinges on our longing to get ahead in a me-first, look-out-for-number-one way of living. I'm racing through life, interacting with cash machines and e-mail messages so I won't have to bother with people and then, suddenly, there's a breathing human face who wants me to respond. It's one thing to say I want to become a person who welcomes the stranger, but quite another to have any sense of mission when my routine is interrupted.
Jan Johnson "Being Present to Others: A Meditation on Mark 5:22-35" by Jan Johnson, Weavings September/October 1997.
Categories: service listening communication relationships

Whatever there is of God and goodness in the universe, it must work itself out and express itself through us. We cannot stand aside and let God do it.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Categories: responsibility ministry service volunteerism

You must first know what people need, and then invest yourself where you are most needed.
Russell H. Conwell Treasury of Inspiration
Categories: vision service success excellence

You have to assume that you're in business for the long haul. That belief will drive you to build value.
Regis McKenna "Unit of One," Fast Company, January/February 2000.
Categories: excellence success service business

Much of the ache and the brooding unhappiness in modern man is the result of his difficulty in using himself fully. He performs compartmentalized tasks in a compartmentalized world. But there are vast urges of conscience, natural purpose and goodness inside him demanding air and release. And he has his own potentialities, the regions of which are far broader than he can even guess at, that keep nagging at him to be used.
Norman Cousins Albert Schweitzer's Mission : Healing and Peace
Categories: purpose meaning fulfillment service

Nobody makes a greater mistake that he does nothing because he could only do a little.
Edmund Burke The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations
Categories: inaction service giving ability

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
William James The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations
Categories: action meaning purpose service

One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people.
Dick Gregory The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy service ministry volunteerism

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.
Albert Schweitzer The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: service ministry volunteerism happiness joy

The unfortunate need people who will be kind to them; the prosperous need people to be kind to.
Aristotle The Forbes Book of Business Quotations : 14,266 Thoughts on the Business of Life
Categories: volunteer kindness service interdependence

If you mean to profit, learn to please.
Winston Churchill The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: business service attitude personality

Friends, I have lost a day.
Titus, on reflecting that he had done nothing to help anyone all day. The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation
Categories: service kindness compassion volunteerism

If our spirituality, no matter how disciplined, lofty and inspiring, is making us less warmly human, more detached, suspicious of our human 'feelings, emotions, and passions,' then something has gone seriously wrong.
Flora Slosson Wuellner 'Reach out your hand, and put it in my side' Flora Slosson Wuellner, Weavings, September/October 1998
Categories: spirituality love agape service emotions

Then end of all knowledge should be in virtuous action.
Philip Sydney The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: knowledge action effort ministry service

To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: giving sharing service ministry motives

One drop of water helps to swell the ocean; a spark of fire helps to give light to the world. None are too small, too feeble, too poor to be of service. Think of this and act.
Hannah More The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations
Categories: service volunteerism talents giving back

Hunger allows no choice
To the citizens or the police;
We must love one another or die.
W.H. Auden The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: society responsibility charity service volunteerism

Open your heart

Carole King You've Got a Friend : Poetic Selections from the Songs of Carole King
Categories: sharing ministry service authenticity love

It is well to think well; it is divine to act well.
Horace Mann The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: thoughts action service ministry actions

God does not ask your ability or your inability. He asks only your availability.
Mary Kay Ashe Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: ability skill talent willingness service god

When we serve with depth and sincerity, we get a glimpse of the essential quality of who we really can become.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness : Feel, Think, and Live Better Than You Ever Thought Possible
Categories: service volunteerism giving back sharing

So long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
Pandit Jawaharal Nehru The Guinness Chronicle of the 20th-century in Quotations edited by David Milsted
Categories: service volunteerism justice civil rights

There is no duty we so much underrated as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.
Robert Louis Stevenson Simple Abundance:
Categories: happiness joy giving sharing ministry service

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope... and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Robert Kennedy A Mind Like His: Developing the Character of Christ
Categories: action service commitment integrity honesty

The best answer to anger is silence.
German proverb The Forbes Book of Business Quotations: 14,266 Thoughts on the Business of Life
Categories: patience self-control relationships customer service

Do the things
You believe in
In the name of love
And know that
You aren't alone
We all have doubts and fears.
Carole King You've Got a Friend: Poetic Selections from the Songs of Carole King
Categories: passion service love courage fear

The happiest excitement in life is to be convinced that one is fighting for all one is worth on behalf of some clearly seen and deeply felt good.
Ruth Benedict The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: ministry service purpose meaning fulfillment

To forget oneself is to be happy.
Robert Louis Stevenson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness service ministry helping volunteerism

If you want happiness for a lifetime -- help the next generation.
Chinese proverb The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness : Feel, Think, and Live Better Than You Ever Thought Possible
Categories: service serving volunteering volunteerism ministry

If you really want to make a difference, stand up for an unpopular cause.
Edward Asner "Unit of One," Fast Company, December 1999
Categories: community service volunteering make a difference

The hungry belly and the full belly do not walk the same road.
Jamaican proverb The Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs
Categories: ministry sharing community service social responsibility

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
Kahlil Gibran Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: giving sharing volunteerism volunteering service ministry

That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.
Robert Louis Stevenson The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations
Categories: success meaning fulfillment life service giving

It is better to wear out than to rust out.
Fraces E. Willard The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women
Categories: action purpose meaning fulfillment service work

After the verb "to love," "to help" is the most beautiful verb in the world.
Bertha von Suttner "Original ideas get smothered in Web traffic" by Dale Dauten, Arizona Republic, 5/29/2000
Categories: service caring relationships friendships marriage parenting

Dare to believe in miracles. Look beyond the mud on the windshield, beyond the impossible, and know life is more than anguish and stress. Reach out to someone, when your heart is too heavy to feel the sunlight or to taste the rain. Rid yourself of dark thought and melancholy. Open your mind to fresh air, to the unlimited music in your soul.
Joyce Sequichie Hifler A Cherokee Feast of Days: Daily Meditations
Categories: hope optimism positive thinking service action

Be useful where thou livest.
George Herbert Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: service volunteerism giving serving servant leadership

We must have a pure, honest, and warmhearted motivation, and on top of that, determination, optimism, hope, and the ability not to be discouraged. The whole of humanity depends on this motivation.
The Dalai Lama Living in Balance: A Dynamic Approach for Creating Harmony & Wholeness in a Chaotic World
Categories: community society mankind self-improvement growth service

Believe in something big. Your life is worth a noble motive.
Walter Anderson The Confidence Course: Sevens Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Categories: purpose meaning fulfillment mission service ministry

No stranger to trouble myself I am learning to care for the unhappy.
Virgil The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation
Categories: trouble pain suffering service ministry volunteerism

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.
Albert Schweitzer The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: service ministry purpose fulfillment meaning happiness

When I dig another out of trouble, the hole from which I lift him is the place where I bury my own.
Norman Vincent Peale Have a Great Day
Categories: trouble help challenges obstacles win/win volunteerism ministry service

The million little things that drop into your hands
The small opportunities each day brings
He leaves us free to use or abuse
And goes unchanging along His silent way.
Helen Keller Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: service volunteerism giving sharing choice ministry

'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
But to support him after.
William Shakespeare, from Timon of Athens Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: aid assistance help support ministry service donations giving

No one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
Charles Dudley Warner The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: help service serving ministering ministry volunteering volunteerism

All the beautiful sentiments in the world weight less than a single lovely action.
James Russell Lowell The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: actions speech words ministry service serving

I believe that we are here to contribute love to the planet--each of us in our own way.
Bernie Siegel, MD Handbook for the Soul
Categories: love meaning life purpose ministry service

When you can lovingly be present to yourself, your presence to others takes on a deeper quality also.
MacRina Wiederkehr A Tree Full of Angels
Categories: self-acceptance self-nurture self-care authenticity service ministry

Man is never nearer the Divine than in his compassionate moments.
Joseph H. Hertz "Early Light", InTouch, October 1998.
Categories: compassion service kindness forgiveness empathy love

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything you gave me."
Erma Bombeck Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: talent skill ability service giving sharing volunteerism

Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.
Martin Luther King, Jr. The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: happiness joy fulfillment service ministry giving sharing volunteerism

Life is a journey, and one thing’s for sure: You don’t see many hearses with luggage racks on them. We’re privileged to be here, so instead of just using God’s resources, we should leave the place a little better than we found it-or at least leave it the same.
Joel Cunningham "Unit of One" Fast Company, December 1999
Categories: life death greed materialism service volunteerism giving

The ocean is made of drops.
Mother Teresa The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women
Categories: actions service volunteerism helping caring community change

Do all the good you can
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
To all the people you can
As long as ever you can.
John Wesley A Grateful Heart
Categories: service ministry volunteerism mercy compassion kindness actions

A truly wise person will have the wisdom to know what he can do, accept what he can't do, and have the generosity of spirit to extend himself in ways that can make a difference.
John Gray Handbook for the Soul
Categories: service serving volunteering gifts talents skills generosity

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Categories: service ministry giving sharing sacrifice meaning fulfillment

Life's most persistant and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?
Martin Luther King, Jr. Bits and Pieces
Categories: service volunteerism volunteering helping community serving giving

Caring about others, running the risk of feeling, and leaving an impact on people, brings happiness.
Rabbi Harold Kushner The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: service ministry caring sharing volunteerism love relationships

One thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.
Albert Schweitzer The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: service ministry giving sharing serving volunteerism happiness joy

What I do you cannot do; but what you do, I cannot do. The needs are great, and none of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.
Mother Teresa The Power Principle
Categories: abilities cooperation service teamwork team work love

Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.
Sarah Bernhardt Simple Abundance
Categories: life giving sharing service serving energy enthusiasm volunteering

Take a look at those two open hands of yours. They are tools with which to serve, make friends, and reach out for the best in life. Open hands open the way to achievement. Put them to work today.
Wilfred A. Peterson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: service ministry friendships relationships success achievement work effort

Seek happiness for its own sake, and you will not find it; seek for duty, and happiness will follow as the shadow comes with the sunshine.
Tyron Edwards The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness work effort ministry service character actions duty

None so little enjoy themselves, and are such burdens to themselves, as those who have nothing to do. Only the active have the true relish of life.
William Jay The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: actions purpose meaning fulfillment work service ministry happiness joy

The greatest object in the universe, says a certain philosopher, is a good man struggling with adversity; yet there is still a greater, which is the good man who comes to relieve it.
Oliver Goldsmith The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: character growth adversity problems difficulties challenges ministry service

It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action.
Lin Yutang The Importance of Living
Categories: belief faith religion action ministry service work fruits

Make one person happy each day and in forty years you will have made 14,600 human beings happy for a little time, at least.
Charley Willey The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy service ministry volunteerism hugs smiles giving sharing

It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.
Hugh Black The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy happy happiness sadness depression purpose meaning fulfillment service ministry

It is better to do the wrong thing than to do nothing.
Winston Churchill The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: action inaction sympathy death condolences service ministry failure mistake

A fellow doesn't last long on what he has done. He's got to keep on delivering as he goes along.
Carl Hubbell The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: reputation pride conceit vanity success work effort vision service

In my opinion, he only may be truly said to live and enjoy his being who is engaged in some laudable pursuit, and acquires a name by some illustrious action, or useful art.
Sallust The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: meaning purpose fulfillment service ministry volunteerism work career action

I have a prescription for boosting your resistance to burnout: Get outside yourself, and do something that has nothing to do with your normal day's work... Do other things. Do things for other people, if you can. Do whatever you must to get the focus off your own problems. You need to have a diversion, particularly when times are difficult.
Ben Carson, pediatric neurosurgeon "Unit of One: Don't Burn Out", Fast Company May 2000
Categories: burnout stress adversity balance voluteerism giving sharing service ministry

Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.
John Burroughs Light from Many Lamps
Categories: work vocation occupation meaning purpose fulfillment career creativity service

Happiness comes most to persons who seek her least, and think least about it. It is not an object to be sought; it is a state to be induced. It must follow and not lead. It must overtake you, and not you overtake it.
John Burroughs Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness work effort action service ministry meaning purpose fulfillment joy

Find your true path. It's so easy to become someone we don't want to be, without even realizing it's happening. We are created by the choices we make every day. And if we take action in order to please some authority figure, we'll suddenly wake up down the road and say, "This isn't me. I never wanted to be this person."
Bernie Siegel, MD Handbook for the Soul
Categories: self calling ministry service purpose meaning fulfillment work vocation happiness

You've touched people and know it. You've touched people and never may know it. Either way, no matter what your life feels like to you right now, you have something to give. It is in giving to one another that each one of our lives becomes meaningful.
Laura Schlessinger "In quiet way, one can impact other's lives" by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, a column which appeared in the 11/10/98 Arizona Republic.
Categories: speech service serving ministry ministering giving sharing meaning purpose fulfillment

If you want to be creative in your company, your career, your life, all it takes is one easy step...the extra one. When you encounter a familiar plan, you just ask one question: "What ELSE could we do?"
Dale Dauten "Grimness shouldn't be part of creativity"``by Dale Dauten, published in the Arizona Republic Oct. 29, 1998.
Categories: creativity leadership excellence. go the extra mile initiative innovation business customer service

Some tension is necessary for the soul
Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. Handbook for the Soul
Categories: personal growth change soul love healing forgiveness service serve self-nurture

Unless we think of others and do something for them, we miss one of the greatest sources of happiness.
Ray Lyman Wilbur Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness service ministry volunteerism giving sharing volunteering community meaning fulfillment

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow-men; and along those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.
Herman Melville The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: purpose meaning fulfillment relationships society actions responsibility service ministry volunteerism cause and effect

The true way to soften one's troubles is to solace those of others.
Madame De Maintenon The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: help service serving giving sharing volunteering volunteerism adversity challenges problems difficulty difficulties

Seek to do good, and you will find that happiness will run after you.
James Freeman Clarke The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: work effort action purpose meaning fulfillment sharing giving service serving volunteers volunteering

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
Aristotle Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: virtue usefulness talents serving sharing volunteerism relationships love character service giving back

When we can see past our own reflection - when we see and care beyond ourselves, when we see and learn from others - only then do we become adults.
Walter Anderson The Confidence Course: Sevens Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Categories: focus balance orientation community society responsibility maturity mature maturation growth service ministry

A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires sooner or later always leads to bitter disappointment.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Categories: wants desires lusts sensuality selfishness sadness depression meaning fulfillment service ministry giving sharing self-sacrifice

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, the being a force of nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
George Bernard Shaw Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: vision mission service giving sharing volunteerism volunteering joy happiness meaning purpose fulfillment attitude reason for living

All of the most successful human beings I've know were inwardly at war with themselves. Their turmoil was at least as great as our own, and sometimes greater. What distinguished these leaders was not some inner peace but rather how they had learned to organize their lives around a noble ambition and to focus on it.
Walter Anderson The Confidence Course: Sevens Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Categories: leadership excellence focus priorities balance peace purpose mission vision goal character meaning fulfillment service

To me there is in happiness an element of self-forgetfulness. You lose yourself in something outside yourself when you are happy; just as when you are desperately miserable you are intensely conscious of yourself, are a solid little lump of ego weighing a ton.
J.B. Priestley Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness fulfillment meaning selflessness selfishness depression sadness emotions attitude giving sharing community service ministry

Every calling is great when greatly pursued.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: vocation work job effort vision mission goal success achievement career business service calling purpose meaning fulfillment action

The ingredients of happiness are so simple that they can be counted on one hand. Happiness comes from within, and rests most securely on simple goodness and clear conscience. Religion may not be essential to it, but no one is known to have gained it without a philosophy resting on ethical principles. Selfishness is its enemy; to make another happy is to be happy one's self. It is quiet, seldom found for long in crowds, most easily won in moments of solitude and reflection. It cannot be bought; indeed money has very little to do with it.
William Ogden Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness joy character honesty integrity religion philosohpy self-centered vain service ministry giving sharing meditation possessions money materialism

Growth of the soul is our goal, and
Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. Handbook for the Soul
Categories: personal growth self-improvement change love nature forgiveness service volunteerism love action

There is no such thing as a great talent without great willpower.
Honore de Balzac Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: success achievement discipline talent ability will skill potential work effort action ministry service self-control practice character persistence persevere

Look at people; recognize them, accept them as they are, without wanting to change them.
Helen Beginton Words for All Occasions
Categories: acceptance relationships love friendships change sharing giving agape ministry service serving healing marriage relationships

We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own.
Ben Sweetland The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness ministry service volunteerism happiness joy

I think even lying on my bed I can still do something.
Dorothea Dix Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: meaning purpose ministry service prayer usefulness self-confidence purpose meaning sharing