Inspiring Fundraising Quotes to Ignite Your Passion for Giving

""It’s not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving.""

- Mother Teresa

""The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.""

- Mitch Albom

""Lift up your eyes and see the good in the world, for we are people with an amazing capacity to do great good. And if only the minority choose to exercise this capacity to the smallest degree, oh how wondrous and sweet the deeds performed at but a few hands!""

- Richelle E. Goodrich

""Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.""

- John Wesley

""Darkness cannot drive out darkness: Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that.""

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

""There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.""

- John Holmes

""Kindness can transform someone’s dark moment with a blaze of light. You’ll never know how much your caring matters. Make a difference for another today.""

- Amy Leigh Mercree

"You have not lived until you have done something for someone who can never repay you."

- John Bunyan

"The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth."

- Muhammad Ali

"Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart."

- Elizabeth Andrew

"The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention."

- Oscar Wilde

"What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead."

- Nelson Mandela

"The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet… Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experience. They can think themselves into other people’s places… We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better."

- J.K. Rowling

"No one has ever become poor from giving."

- Anne Frank

"I choose to rise up out of that storm and see that in moments of desperation, fear and helplessness, each of us can be a rainbow of hope, doing what we can to extend ourselves in kindness and grace to one another. And I know for sure that there is no them – there’s only us."

- Oprah Winfrey

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

- Winston Churchill

"The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope."

- Barack Obama

"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Giving is not just about making a donation. It is about making a difference."

- Kathy Calvin

"At the end of the day it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished… it’s about who you’ve lifted up, who you’ve made better. It’s about what you’ve given back."

- Denzel Washington

"Giving to those in need will bring more joy than money could ever buy."

- Dave Ramsey

"I don’t think you ever stop giving. I really don’t. I think it’s an on-going process. And it’s not just about being able to write a check. It’s being able to touch somebody’s life."

- Oprah Winfrey

"It’s not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving."

- Mother Teresa

"Volunteers don’t get paid, not because they’re worthless, but because they’re priceless."

- Sherry Anderson

"Fundraising is the gentle art of teaching the joy of giving."

- Hank Rosso

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."

- Helen Keller

"For it is in giving that we receive."

- Francis of Assisi

"If you call yourself Save the Whales, every once in a while you have to save a whale."

- Tom Ahern

""Donors don’t give to institutions. They invest in ideas and people in whom they believe.""

- G.T. Smith

""It’s not just about being able to write a check. It’s being able to touch somebody’s life.""

- Oprah Winfrey

""No one has ever become poor from giving.""

- Mary Angelou

""I don’t think you ever stop giving. I really don’t. I think it’s an ongoing process. And it’s not just about being able to write a check. It’s being able to touch somebody’s life.""

- Oprah Winfrey

""We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.""

- Winston Churchill

""Every good act is charity. A man's true wealth hereafter is the good that he does in this world to his fellows.""

- Moliere

""Only by giving are you able to receive more than you already have""

- Jim Rohn

""Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much""

- Helen Keller

""Fundraising is the gentle art of teaching the joy of giving.""

- Hank Rosso

""Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.""

- Edmund Burke

""Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.""

- Barbara de Angelis

""Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.""

- Desmond Tutu

""There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.""

- Kahlil Gibran

""Everyone can experience the joy and blessing of generosity; because everyone has something to give.""

- Jan Grace

""You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.""

- John Bunyan

""Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.""

- President Barack Obama

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."

- Aesop

""What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.""

- Albert Pike

""Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.""

- Booker T. Washington

""The best things to do with the best things in life is to give them away.""

- Dorothy Day

""To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.""

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

""Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.""

- Minor Myers

""Giving is not just about making a donation. It is about making a difference.""

- Kathy Calvin

""Be the change you want to see in the world.""

- Mahatma Gandhi

""It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.""

- Mother Teresa

"Volunteers will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no volunteers."

- Ken Wyman

""You give little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.""

- Kahil Gibran

"The most truly generous persons are those who give silently without hope of praise or reward."

- Carol Ryrie Brink

"Always have a willing hand to help someone, you might be the only one that does."

- Roy T. Bennett

"I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy."

- Kahlil Gibran

"A single act of kindness is like a drop of oil on a patch of dry skin—seeping, spreading, and affecting more than the original need."

- Richelle E. Goodrich

""If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.""

- Chinese Proverb

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader."

- John Quincy Adams

"Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders."

- Tom Peters

""In good times and bad, we know that people give because you meet needs, not because you have needs.""

- Kay Sprinkel Grace

"As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way."

- Mary Anne Radmacher

"The secret to change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new."

- Socrates

""Giving is not an act of depletion, it’s an act of repletion.""

- Pete Kelly

"Be happy with what you have while working for what you want."

- Helen Keller

""I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.""

- Maya Angelou

""Find a need and fill it.""

- Ruth Stafford Peale

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle."

- Plato

""Giving to those in need will bring more joy than money could ever buy.""

- Dave Ramsey

"Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world."

- Malala Yousafzai

"Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered."

- Michelle Obama

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has."

- Margaret Mead

""If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them.""

- Jeff Brooks

"It is more rewarding to watch money change the world than to watch it accumulate."

- Gloria Steinem

""Non nobis solum nati sumus.(Not for ourselves alone are we born.)""

- Marcus Tullius Cicero

"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal."

- Albert Pike

""Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away.""

- Elbert Hubbard

"Volunteers are the only human beings on the face of the earth who reflect this nation’s compassion, unselfish caring, patience, and just plain loving one another."

- Erma Bombeck

"There is nothing more beautiful than someone who goes out of their way to make life beautiful for others."

- Mandy Hale

""He who wished to secure the good of others, has already secured his own.""

- Confucius

""The work of volunteers impacts all our lives, even if we are not aware of it.""

- Anthony Worrall-Thompson

""Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.""

- Plato

""As one person I cannot change the world, but I can change the world of one person.""

- Paul Shane Spear

""I think a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people.""

- Maya Angelou

""A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. The same fight is going on inside you." The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?" The old man replied simply, "The one you feed.""

- Wendy Mass

""The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.""

- Nelson Henderson

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."

- Edmund Burke

""Go out into the world and do good until there is too much good in the world.""

- Larry H. Miller

"Go out into the world and do good until there is too much good in the world."

- Larry H. Miller

"Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good."

- Minor Myers

"The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit."

- Nelson Henderson

""To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it.""

- Mother Theresa

""We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.""

- Mother Teresa

"Help one another. There’s no time like the present, and no present like the time."

- James Durst

"My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style."

- Maya Angelou

""We need to value donors as much as we need value from them.""

- Reinier Spruit

""The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.""

- Richard P. Feynman

""It is more rewarding to watch money change the world than to watch it accumulate.""

- Gloria Steinem

""Never think you need to apologize for asking someone to give to a worthy objective, any more than as though you were giving him an opportunity to participate in high-grade investment. The duty of giving is as much his as the duty of asking yours. Whether or not he should give to that particular enterprise, and if so, how much, it is for him alone to decide.""

- John D. Rockefeller

"Charity begins at home but should not end there."

- Thomas Fuller

"Believe you can and you are halfway there."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do."

- Steve Jobs

"I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back."

- Maya Angelou

""You cannot receive what you don’t give. Outflow determines inflow.""

- Eckhart Tolle

"It always seems impossible until it’s done."

- Nelson Mandela

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Every sunrise is an invitation for us to arise and brighten someone’s day."

- Richelle E. Goodrich

""The best thing about giving of ourselves is that what we get is always better than what we give. The reaction is greater than the action.""

- Orison Swett Marden

""It is only in the giving of oneself to others that we truly live.""

- Ethel Percy Andrus

"I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."

- Abraham Lincoln

"In a gentle way, you can shake the world."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."

- Mahatma Gandhi

""Giving is an attitude. It is not dependent on the amount of money in your bank account. It’s a heart issue.""

- John Di Lemme

""The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.""

- William James

"A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart."

- Jonathan Swift

"As I grew older it seemed that I was not making a big enough difference, particularly given my own incredible good fortune. I went from feeling content that things were going well, to realizing that I hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface of what needed to be done."

- Richard Branson

"Our society has an obligation to invest now to improve the lives of all those coming into this world, not just those already here."

- Mark Zuckerberg

"You miss 100% of the chances you don’t take."

- Wayne Gretzky

"If you can dream it, you can do it."

- Walt Disney

"The most effective way to do it, is to do it."

- Amelia Earhart

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."

- Edith Wharton

"If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them."

- Jeff Brooks

"We need to value donors as much as we need value from them."

- Reinier Spruit

""Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.""

- William James

""I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.""

- Edward Everett Hale

""The manner of giving is worth more than the gift""

- Pierre Corneille

""Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.""

- Vincent van Gogh

""Happiness can be the result, not of spending more money on oneself, but rather of giving money away to others.""

- Christian Smith

""From the perspective of the gospel, fund-raising is not a response to crisis. Fund-raising is, first and foremost, a form of ministry.""

- Henri Nouwen

""There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.""

- Edith Wharton

""I have tried raising money by asking for it, and by not asking for it. I always got more by asking for it.""

- Millard Fuller

""Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.""

- Oprah Winfrey

""Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy.""

- Dean Koontz

""The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.""

- Meryl Streep

""Real generosity to the future lies in giving all to the present.""

- Albert Camus

""In the long run, we get no more than we have been willing to risk giving.""

- Sheldon Kopp

""There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life—happiness, freedom, and peace of mind—are always attained by giving them to someone else.""

- Peyton Conway March

""Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you.""

- Andre Gide

""No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.""

- Calvin Coolidge

""Giving opens the way for receiving.""

- Florence Scovel Shinn

""Giving money effectively is almost as hard as earning it in the first place.""

- Bill Gates

""Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.""

- Harriet Tubman

""How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.""

- Anne Frank

""Beginning today; treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.""

- Og Mandino

""The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.""

- Benjamin Disraeli

""Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… The ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.""

- Steve Jobs

""Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.""

- Margaret Mead

""Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.""

- Leo Buscaglia

""Every man must decide whether he will walk in the creative light of altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgement. Life’s persistent and most urgent question is “What are you doing for others?""

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

""Think of giving not only as a duty but as a privilege.""

- John D. Rockefeller

""The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving.""

- Albert Einstein

""I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.""

- Maya Angelou

""To give away money is an easy matter and in any man’s power. But to decide to whom to give it and how large and when, and for what purpose and how, is neither in every man’s power nor an easy matter.""

- Aristotle

""It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference.""

- Tom Brokaw

""Helping people doesn’t have to be an unsound financial strategy.""

- Melinda Gates

""Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others.""

- Brian Tracy

""The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.""

- Henry David Thoreau

""Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.""

- Dalai Lama XIV

""Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor… Explore. Dream.""

- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

""My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well, and don’t regret the things it interferes with. Don’t be disabled in spirit as well as physically.""

- Stephen Hawking

""A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.""

- Mahatma Gandhi

""If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.""

- B. Reese

""It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little — do what you can.""

- Sydney Smith

""If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.""

- Mother Teresa

""Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.""

- Norman Vincent Peale

""Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear.""

- Ambrose Redmoon

""Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.""

- Frederick Buechner

""Life tests the big dreamers – the passionate revolutionaries.""

- Robin Sharma

""Difficult things we do quickly. The impossible takes a little longer.""

- David Ben-Gurion

""Turn strangers into friends. Turn friends into donors. And then… do the most important job: Turn your donors into fundraisers.""

- Seth Godin

""It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.""

- Henry David Thoreau

""A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.""

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Flight to Arras)

""First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.""

- Epictetus

""The purpose of life is not to be happy — but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all.""

- Leo Rosten

""We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.""

- Aristotle

""Every great story on the planet happened when someone decided not to give up, but kept going no matter what.""

- Spryte Loriano

""A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses.""

- Chinese Proverb

""The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.""

- Helen Keller

""Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve… You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.""

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

""Only a life lived for others, is a life worthwhile.""

- Albert Einstein

""If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?""

- Seth Godin

""Never give up when you truly believe. The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts.""

- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

""If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.""

- Bob Hope

""Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul; the blueprints of your ultimate achievement.""

- Napoleon Hill

""Appreciation can make a day—even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary.""

- Margaret Cousins

""A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.""

- Jonathan Swift

""The real test of success is whether a life has been a happy one and a happy giving one.""

- Sir Henry Newbolt

""Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.""

- Acts 20:35

""Charity begins at home but should not end there.""

- Thomas Fuller

""He who allows his day to pass by without practicing generosity & enjoying life’s pleasures…breathes but does not live.""

- Sanskrit Proverb

""He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own.""

- Confucius

""Much is required from those to whom much is given.""

- Luke 12:48

""God gives, but man must open his hand.""

- German Proverb

""You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.""

- Wayne Gretzky

"Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t."

- Bill Nye

""As you go through your presentation, ask questions that stimulate dialogue. Monologues work for Jay Leno, but they aren’t appropriate in fundraising appeals.""

- Scott Morton

""Few actions of consequence in the world have been accomplished without passion.""

- Jerold Panas

"God damn it, you’ve got to be kind."

- Kurt Vonnegut

""The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.""

- William James

""The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith.""

- Bertrand Russell V. Delong

""Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.""

- Gladys Browyn Stern

""Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a gift and not giving it.""

- William Arthur Ward

""The meeting of two personalities is like contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.""

- Carl Jung

""Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.""

- Jane Austen

""A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.""

- George Bernard Shaw

""If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.""

- Tallulah Bankhead

""An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.""

- Niels Bohr

""Mistakes are the portals of discovery.""

- James Joyce

""While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.""

- Henry C. Link

""Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.""

- Sophia Loren

""To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all.""

- Peter McWilliams

""A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will be refreshed.""

- Proverbs 11:25

""Apart from the ballot box, philanthropy presents the one opportunity the individual has to express his meaningful choice over the direction in which our society will progress.""

- George G. Kirstein

"Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you."

""I wondered why somebody didn’t do something. Then I realized, I am somebody.""

"The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them away."

"Think of giving not as a duty, but as a privilege."

""According to the theory of aerodynamics, the bumble bee is unable to fly because the size, weight and shape of its body in relation to the total wing spread make flying impossible. But the bumble bee, being ignorant of these profound scientific truths, goes ahead and flies anyway and manages to make a little honey every day.""

"It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it."

"The most precious thing I have to give is my time."

"The next time you want to withhold your help, or your love, or your support for another for whatever the reason, ask yourself a simple question: do the reasons you want to withhold it reflect more on them or on you? And which reasons do you want defining you forevermore?"

""He who receives a good turn, should never forget it: he who does one, should never remember it.""

""Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, empathy and understanding.""

""When courage, genius, and generosity hold hands, all things are possible.""

"We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something."

""The price of living is giving.""

"Help others without any reason and give without the expectation of receiving anything in return."

""Sacrifice is giving up something good for something better.""

"He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own."

""Volunteers are love in motion!""

"Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others."

"Everyone can be great because everyone can serve."

""When something goes wrong in your life just yell ‘Plot twist!’ and move on.""

""Life is never so busy that there is no time to serve.""

""No one is more cherished in this world than someone who lightens the burden of another.""

"The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service."

"The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful than a thousand heads bowing in prayer."

"Wealth isn’t always measured in dollar signs. We each have time, talent, and creativity, all of which can be powerful forces for positive change. Share your blessings in whatever form they come and to whatever level you have been blessed."

"Love cannot remain by itself—it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action and that action is service."

"What virtue is there in a man who demonstrates goodness because he has been bred to it? It is his habit from youth. But a man who has known unkindness and want, for him to be kind and charitable to those who have been the cause of his misfortunes, that is a virtuous man."

"Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance."

"While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary."

"Love is not patronizing and charity isn’t about pity, it is about love. Charity and love are the same—with charity you give love, so don’t just give money but reach out your hand instead."

"One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn’t as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing."

"The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members."

"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men."

"If you’re in the luckiest one percent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 percent."

""Life is an echo—what you send out comes back.""

"The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves."

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

"There is no better exercise for your heart than reaching down and helping to lift someone up."

"Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all people are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all people and all countries—not until then shall we, with a certain degree of justification, be able to speak of humankind as civilized."

"We are not put on this earth for ourselves, but are placed here for each other. If you are always there for others, then in time of need, someone will be there for you."