100 Inspirational Quotes on Serving Others: A Heartfelt Collection to Motivate Your Service

"The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others."

- Albert Schweitzer

"Help others and give something back. I guarantee you will discover that while public service improves the lives and the world around you, its greatest reward is the enrichment and new meaning it will bring your own life."

- Arnold Schwarzenegger

"Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world."

- Howard Zinn

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

- Desmond Tutu

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

- Mohammed Ali

"Give your hands to serve, and your hearts to love."

- Mother Teresa

"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you."

- Mother Teresa

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

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Everybody can be great because everybody can serve."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?"

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"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

"As we serve others we are working on ourselves; every act, every word, every gesture of genuine compassion naturally nourishes our own hearts as well. It is not a question of who is healed first. When we attend to ourselves with compassion and mercy, more healing is made available for others. And when we serve others with an open and generous heart, great healing comes to us."

- Wayne Muller

"Service is what life is all about."

- Marian Wright Edelman

"You ask me to give you a motto. Here it is: SERVICE. Let this word accompany each of you throughout your life. Let it be before you as you seek your way and your duty in the world. May it be recalled to your minds if ever you are tempted to forget it or set it aside. It will not always be a comfortable companion but it will always be a faithful one. And it will be able to lead you to happiness, no matter what the experiences of your lives are. Never have this word on your lips, but keep it in your hearts. And may it. . . teach you not only to do good but to do it simply and humbly."

- Albert Schweitzer

"At the heart of silence is prayer. At the heart of prayer is faith. At the heart of faith is life. At the heart of life is service."

- Mother Teresa

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no person can sincerely try to help another without helping him or herself. Serve and you shall be served. If you love and serve people, you cannot, by any hiding or stratagem, escape the remuneration."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Everybody can be great. . . because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. . . . You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The motive, if you are to find inner peace, must be an outgoing motive. Service, of course--service. Giving, not getting. Your motive must be good if your work is to have good effect. The secret of life is being of service."

- Peace Pilgrim

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

- Mandy Hale

"We only have what we give."

- Isabel Allende

"They have a Right to censure, that have a Heart to help: The rest is Cruelty, not Justice. (Frequently misquoted as "He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.")"

- William Penn

"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."

- Mother Teresa

"Give, but give until it hurts."

- Mother Teresa

"Good works is giving to the poor and the helpless, but divine works is showing them their worth to the One who matters."

- Criss Jami

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

- Warren Buffett

"One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone."

- Shannon L. Alder

"Strong people don't put others down... They lift them up."

- Michael P. Watson

"If you're not making someone else's life better, then you're wasting your time. Your life will become better by making other lives better."

- Will Smith

"Remember this. Hold on to this. This is the only perfection there is, the perfection of helping others. This is the only thing we can do that has any lasting meaning. This is why we're here. To make each other feel safe."

- Andre Agassi

"What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good."

- Aristotle

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

- Sherry Anderson

"Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more."

- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

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

- Oscar Wilde

"If our hopes of building a better and safer world are to become more than wishful thinking, we will need the engagement of volunteers more than ever."

- Kofi Annan

"As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands — one for helping yourself, the other for helping others."

- Audrey Hepburn

"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

"You may not have saved a lot of money in your life, but if you have saved a lot of heartaches for other folks, you are a pretty rich man."

- Seth Parker

"Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?"

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Our generation has the ability and the responsibility to make our ever-more connected world a more hopeful, stable and peaceful place."

- Natalie Portman

"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

"The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away."

- Pablo Picasso

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

- Elizabeth Andrew

"There is a big difference between service and working for the sake of getting something. When you serve, you are not tied to the outcome. You are not invested in what people do as a result of what you do, or what people think about what you are doing. You give what you have because it makes you feel good. You give what you have because you know that the unique way in which you do what you do will make someone else feel good. In situations when your service is not rewarded by monetary or public recognition, you are not depleted or defeated. You are encouraged to take your service to a higher level. You are inspired to pour more love into your work."

- Iyanla Vanzant

"Whatever you have received more than others--in health, in talents, in ability, in success, in a pleasant childhood, in harmonious conditions of home life--all this you must not take to yourself as a matter of course. In gratitude for your good fortune, you must remember in return some sacrifice of your own life for another life."

- Albert Schweitzer

"Service rendered as a gift or love-offering to Life: work that is engaged in, not for self or for profit, but as an act of love and service, these bring the doer a harvest of blessings. . . . When we serve and when we give, we open ourselves to receive life's richest blessings, its greatest prizes, and its most enduring lessons."

- Henry T. Hamblin

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

- Marcus Tullius Cicero

"I don't want to live in the kind of world where we don't look out for each other. Not just the people that are close to us, but anybody who needs a helping hand. I cant change the way anybody else thinks, or what they choose to do, but I can do my bit."

- Charles de Lint

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

- Betty Reese

"Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness."

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"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 don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Service is the rent we pay for our place on earth."

- Shirley Chisholm

"Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time."

- Marian Wright Edelman

"Always try to serve others. Don't even call it helping, call it service because you are benefited by that. If someone begs from you and you give them something, you shouldn't think you are helping them. Instead, he or she is helping you."

- Satchidananda

"The most satisfactory thing in all this earthly life is to be able to serve our fellow-beings—first, those who are bound to us by ties of love, then the wider circle of fellow-townsmen, fellow-countrymen, or fellow-men. To be of service is a solid foundation for contentment in this world."

- Charles W. Eliot

"Service to others is a creative process that releases energy which can manifest itself in many ways and bring deeper meaning into your life. When we love deeply enough, coupled with the desire to be helpful to those around us and to our world, we often find fulfillment and true closeness with others that can satisfy our desire to reach the heart of them."

- John Marks Templeton

"The value of all service lies in the spirit in which you serve and not in the importance or magnitude of the service. Even the lowliest task or deed is made holy, joyous, and prosperous when it is filled with love."

- Charles Fillmore

"The more you care about others, the more confidently you act. There is nothing you cannot do, no defeat you cannot survive, no fear you cannot overcome, when you are concentrated heart and soul in helping others."

- Robert O'Brien

"One of the great underlying principles governing our life is service. Most of us have to work, but do we serve? Do we work in a spirit of service? Do we work for Life and our fellows? Or do we merely work for self, in order to make a living?"

- Henry T. Hamblin

"If you're wondering when you should give to or serve someone else, I believe in doing it spontaneously, perhaps in a shared moment of emotion. Or any time you feel like someone needs your support. Whether you do it all the time, occasionally, or when the opportunity arises, just do it. Reach out and give of yourself and your time. I have seen, time and again, that happiness and enjoyment arise from being of service in simple ways."

- Lucinda Bassett

"To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind."

- Pearl S. Buck

"You have not lived a perfect day, even though you have earned your money, unless you have done something for someone who will never be able to repay you."

- Ruth Smeltzer

"The practice of loving kindness must find its root deep within us. The story is told that Mohandas Gandhi once settled in a village and at once began serving the needs of the villagers who lived there. A friend inquired if Gandhi's objectives in serving the poor were purely humanitarian. Gandhi replied, "Not at all. I am here to serve no one else but myself, to find my own self-realization through the service of these village folk." As Gandhi wisely points out, even as we serve others we are working on ourselves; every act, every word, every gesture of genuine compassion naturally nourishes our own hearts as well. It is not a question of who is healed first. When we attend to ourselves with compassion and mercy, more healing is made available for others. And when we serve others with an open and generous heart, great healing comes to us."

- Wayne Muller

"When you make a choice to be of service to others, you gain the courage and sense of determination that will fuel your efforts. With a solid vision in place, you also become less concerned with your individual fear or self-doubt and more committed to taking the actions that will support your larger vision."

- Cheryl Richardson

"Giving kids clothes and food is one thing, but it's much more important to teach them that other people besides themselves are important and that the best thing they can do with their lives is to use them in the service of other people."

- Dolores Huerta

"Life is a place of service and in that service one has to suffer a great deal that is hard to bear, but more often to experience a great deal of joy. But that joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness."

- Lev Tolstoy

"The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you."

- John E. Southard

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

- Tom Brokaw

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

- William James

"If you become a helper of hearts, springs of wisdom will flow from your heart."

- Rumi

"The broadest, and maybe the most meaningful definition of volunteering: Doing more than you have to because you want to, in a cause you consider good."

- Ivan Scheier

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

- James Durst

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not."

- Dr. Seuss

"I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world."

- Mother Teresa

"While earning your daily bread, be sure you share a slice with those less fortunate."

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

"One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind."

- Malayan Proverb

"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

"Even if you just change one life, you’ve changed the world forever."

- Mike Satterfield

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

- Mother Teresa

"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

"Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves."

- James Matthew Barrie

"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

"The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green."

- Thomas Carlyle

"Even if it’s a little thing, do something for those who have need of a man’s help– something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. For, remember, you don’t live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here, too."

- Albert Schweitzer

"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

"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

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

- Nelson Henderson

"Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy."

- Rabindranath Tagore

"You have two hands: One to help yourself, the second to help others."

- Audrey Hepburn

"Help the life of one person and you can help the community."

- Steven Sawalich

"Some of our finest work comes through service to others."

- Gordon Hinckley

"To give real service, you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money."

- Douglas Adams

"Love in action is service to the world."

- Lynne Namka

"Do some selfless service for people who are in need. Consider the whole picture, not just our little selves."

- Nina Hagen

"A life of significance is about serving those who need your gifts, your leadership, your purpose."

- Kevin Hall

"If you really want to receive joy and happiness, then serve others with all your heart. Lift their burden, and your own burden will be lighter."

- Ezra Taft Benson

"Our rewards in life will always be in direct ratio to our service."

- Earl Nightingale

"He profits most who serves best."

- Arthur F. Sheldon

"The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being."

- Lee Iacocca

"Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness – great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy."

- Jim Rohn

"Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness."

- Leo Tolstoy

"All other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"You can start right where you stand and apply the habit of going the extra mile by rendering more service and better service than you are now being paid for."

- Napoleon Hill

"As far as service goes, it can take the form of a million things. To do service, you don’t have to be a doctor working in the slums for free, or become a social worker. Your position in life and what you do doesn’t matter as much as how you do what you do."

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

"Service brings satisfaction."

- James Cash Penney

"Don’t ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit – things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day: Civility, respect, kindness, character."

- Aaron Sorkin

"Start where you are. Distant fields always look greener, but opportunity lies right where you are. Take advantage of every opportunity of service."

- Robert Collier

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

- Sydney Smith

"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

"So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no person is useless while he has a friend."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

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

- Anne Frank

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

- Winston Churchill

"The best antidote I know for worry is work. The best cure for weariness is the challenge of helping someone who is even more tired. One of the great ironies of life is this: He or she who serves almost always benefits more than he or she who is served."

- Gordon B. Hinckley

"The end of all knowledge should be service to others."

- Cesar Chavez

"Without service, we would not have a strong quality of life. It’s important to the person who serves as well as the recipient. It’s the way in which we ourselves grow and develop."

- Dorothy Height

"Leadership is service, not position."

- Tim Fargo

"Being of service to others is what brings true happiness."

- Marie Osmond

"The more we give away, the more is given to us."

- Wayne W Dyer

"As we lose ourselves in the service of others we discover our own lives and our own happiness."

- Dieter F. Uchtdorf

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

- Muhammad Ali

"Everyone has a purpose in life and a unique talent to give to others. And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals."

- Kallam Anji Reddy

"Always render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be."

- Og Mandino

"Service doesn’t have to be big and grandiose to be meaningful and make a difference."

- Cheryl Esplin

"Earn your success based on service to others, not at the expense of others."

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

"There is incredible value in being of service to others."

- Elizabeth Berg

"We work to become, not to acquire."

- Elbert Hubbard

"When I use my strength in the service of my vision it makes no difference whether or not I am afraid."

- Audre Lorde

"For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice - no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service."

- John Burroughs

"Charity, a word that comprises love and justice, may well be the most sublime of all Christian virtues."

- Diana Butler Bass

"Work is love made visible."

- Kahlil Gibran

"A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog."

- Jack London

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"No one has ever become poor by giving."

- Anne Frank

"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

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another."

- Charles Dickens

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

- John Holmes

"A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal."

- Steve Maraboli

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

- Mahatma Gandhi

"What you do has far greater impact than what you say."

- Stephen Covey

"Great acts are made up of small deeds."

- Lao Tzu

"Goodness is the only investment that never fails."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Service is what prayer looks like when it gets up off its knees and walks around in the world."

- Michael J. Graham, S.J.

"Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others."

- Rosa Parks

"Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something. It's our goal in life to find it and keep it lit."

- Mary Lou Retton

"A life isn't significant except for its impact on others lives."

- Jackie Robinson

"Know yourself. Never forget where you came from, and reach back to help someone else come forward too."

- Alpha Alexander

"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle."

- James Keller

"Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all who need us desperately."

- Elie Wiesel

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

- Pierre Corneille

"You know that your toil is not in vain when it is done in the Lord."

- 1 Corinthians 15:58

"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

"What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal."

- Albert Pike

"People say, 'What is the sense of our small effort?' They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do."

- Dorothy Day

"Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us daily."

- Sally Koch

"The rare individuals who unselfishly try to serve others have an enormous advantage--they have little competition."

- Andrew Carnegie

"We weaken the value of our gifts of service by adding to them love of praise of others, honor, or material profit. Our goal is simply the love of God, without any other consideration whatsoever. Not only does this unseen service help the individual being served and especially the one serving, but it also helps people who know nothing of them. Seeing this act of unselfish giving, they are encouraged to do little acts of kindness themselves. They sense that the real motive behind the service runs far deeper than the service act and are thus inspired in their own faith."

- C.M.M.

"The Hasidic masters tell the story of the rabbi who disappeared every Shabat Eve, "to commune with God in the forest," his congregation thought. So one Sabbath night they deputed one of their cantors to follow the rabbi and observe the holy encounter. Deeper and deeper into the woods the rabbi went until he came to the small cottage of an old Gentile woman, sick to death and crippled into a painful posture. Once there, the rabbi cooked for her and carried her firewood and swept her floor. Then when the chores were finished, he returned immediately to his little house next to the synagogue. Back in the village, the people demanded of the one they'd sent to follow him, "Did our rabbi go up to heaven as we thought?" "Oh, no," the cantor answered after a thoughtful pause, "our rabbi went much, much higher than that.""

- Joan Chittister

"There is nothing wrong with being successful in society and enjoying a degree of fame. But ultimately, the lives of those dedicated to the welfare and happiness of others, even if they remain unrecognized, are the ones truly worthy of respect."

- Daisaku Ikeda

"There are those who in the name of God teach that you must deny yourself and seek only to serve others. God's plan is more beautiful than that. You were created to express the will of God. This means that your highest dreams and aspirations are of God. By seeking these through the ways of the Lord you automatically do that which is best for all others."

- Bruce Gilbert

"I have faith that the time will eventually come when employees and employers, as well as all humankind, will recognize that they serve themselves best when they serve others most."

- B.C. Forbes

"May no one who ever meets me Have a meeting of little consequence. May the simple fact of our meeting Assist in the fulfillment of their wishes. May I be a lamp In the darkness of life, A home for the homeless, And a servant to the world."

- Ancient Buddhist Blessing

"Small service is true service while it lasts. . . The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun."

- William Wordsworth

"There are many wonderful things that will never be done if you don’t do them."

- Charles Gill

"There is nothing small in the service of God."

- St. Francis De Sales

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

- Tom Brokaw

"The pretty ones are usually unhappy. They expect everyone to be enamored of their beauty. How can a person be content when their happiness lies in someone else's hands, ready to be crushed at any moment? Ordinary-looking people are far superior, because they are forced to actually work hard to achieve their goals, instead of expecting people to fall all over themselves to help them."

- J. Cornell Michel

"A storyteller makes up things to help other people; a liar makes up things to help himself."

- Daniel Wallace

"Caring has the gift of making the ordinary special."

- George R. Bach

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"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

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

- Maya Angelou

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

- Albert Einstein

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

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

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

"When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed."

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

"Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in."

"It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice."

"If you want to touch the past, touch a rock. If you want to touch the present, touch a flower. If you want to touch the future, touch a life."

"Volunteers are love in motion!"

"Being good is commendable, but only when it is combined with doing good is it useful."

"Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns."

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

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

"Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve."

"This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in."

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve."

"If you knew what I know about the power of giving, you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way."

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

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