Quotes

Share your favorite quotes about volunteers and volunteering so that others can add a spark to their presentations!  Also look at the other categories of "Quotables":  poems, humor, songs, stories, and parables.

We post quotables by newest submission first.

Put yourself in someone's shoes" is a common phrase. But it is not a common thing that we do everyday. We are, most of the time, self-centred. Especially in this modern, fast-paced life. It is only when we stop for a moment and give our time to others, that we realise the true meaning of empathy. 

--Unknown    Submitted by Abdul Manan Bin Hassan, ASP, PRIS DEPT, Changi, Singapore    

Most of us in volunteer programs now realize that those 1000 points of light of George Bush #1 are really 500 candles burning at both ends and the only thing to trickle down from Reganomics was budget cuts.

--Unknown    Submitted by Nita Moser, Volunteer Coordinator, Battered Women's Project    

A verse to start community meetings:
"A healthy social life is found only, when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection, and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living."

--Rudolf Steiner, Austrian Philosopher and Scientist    Submitted by Sybille B. Hahn, Executive Director, CANES Home Support Services    

The mode in which the inevitable comes to pass is through effort. 

--Oliver Wendell Holmes     Submitted by Mike Corbin, Membership Chair, Metropolitan Detroit Volunteer Administration Network    

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. 
 

--Horace Mann     Submitted by Mike Corbin, Membership Chair, Metropolitan Detroit Volunteer Administration Network    

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

--Epictetus     Submitted by Mike Corbin, Membership Chair, Metropolitan Detroit Volunteer Administration Network    

I'm in the business of loving the hell out of people

--Mother Waddles     Submitted by Mike Corbin, Membership Chair, Metropolitan Detroit Volunteer Administration Network    

They don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

--Unknown    Submitted by Desire'e Larson, Women's Way, North Dakota Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program    

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

--Unknown    Submitted by Lisa Clegg, Coordinator, M.O.V.R.C. Foster Grandparents Program    

Unless someone like you cares a whole, awful lot. Things aren't going to get better, they're NOT!

--Dr. Seuss, The Lorax     Submitted by Sue Nelson, Agency Relations Director, Volunteer Jacksonville, Inc.    

The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today. 

--Saint Francis of Assisi    Submitted by Mike Corbin, Membership Chair, Metropolitan Detroit Volunteer Administration Network    

Better one friend with a dish of food than a hundred with a sigh.

--Yiddish Proverb    Submitted by Mike Corbin, Membership Chair, Metropolitan Detroit Volunteer Administration Network    

Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

--I John 3:18    Submitted by Mike Corbin, Membership Chair, Metropolitan Detroit Volunteer Administration Network    

If you can't go where people are happier, try to make people happier where you are.

--Ashleigh Brilliant    Submitted by Mike Corbin, Membership Chair, Metropolitan Detroit Volunteer Administration Network    

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. 

--Mahatma Gandhi    Submitted by Mike Corbin, Membership Chair, Metropolitan Detroit Volunteer Administration Network    

Let ... individuals make the most of what God has given them, have their neighbors do the same, and then do all they can to serve each other. There is no use in one man, or one nation, to try to do or be everything. It is a good thing to be dependent on each other for something, it makes us civil and peaceable.

--Sojourner Truth (c. 1797­1883), African American suffragist and abolitionist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, appendix—ch. 19, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton    Submitted by Lois Gaetz, Director, St Cloud Area Faith in Action, MN/USA    

To the world you may be one person, But to one person you may be the world.

--Unknown    Submitted by Anonymous    

It is one of the beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely help another without helping himself.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson    Submitted by Dominica Larkin, Volunteer Coordinator, The Duke of Edinburgh's Award, Canada    

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 Theresa    Submitted by Jenni    

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.

--van Scheier (from Building Staff/Volunteer Relations)    Submitted by Claudia Collier, Director, Volunteer Center of the YMCA    

Throughout your life, there is a voice only you can hear. A voice which mythologists label "the call." A call to the value of your life. The choice of risk and individual bliss over the known and secure.

You may choose not to hear your spirit. You may prefer to build a life within the compound, to avoid risk. It is possible to find happiness within a familiar box, a life of comfort and control.

Or, you may choose to be open to new experiences, to leave the limits of your conditioning, to hear the call. Then you must act.

If you never hear it, perhaps nothing is lost. If you hear it and ignore it, your life is lost.

--Jennifer James    Submitted by Debra English, Volunteer Coordinator, HealthPartners    

The heart of a volunteer is not measured in size, but by the depth of the commitment to make a difference in the lives of others. 

--Unknown    Submitted by DeAnn Hollis    

Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.

--Chinese Proverb    Submitted by Alane Hill, Project Director, Friends Foster Grandparent Program     

The winds of change shall not discourage the volunteer.

--Unknown    Submitted by Lorna Wilson    

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson     Submitted by Fiona Dawe, Executive Director, YouthNet, London, England    

Which is more subversive—and corrosive—to believe in altruism or to see it simply as a cloak of self interest? Even if altruism did not exist, it would be necessary to believe in it. Pessimists in power are prone to despotism.

--Frank Prochaska in Schools of Citizenship: Charity and Civic Virtue, Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society, London, 2002    Submitted by Susan Ellis    

It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference.

--Tom Brokaw    Submitted by Cathie Waugh, Volunteer Coordinator, Habitat for Humanity, Colorado    

Being a man or a woman is a matter of birth. Being a man or a woman who makes a difference is a matter of choice.

--Byron Garrett, staff member of Arizona's Governor     Submitted by Nicolette Ryan, Volunteer Coordinator, Central Arizona Shelter Services    

It is only through the eyes of others do you see yourself. It is only through the work of your own do you find the difference in others.

--Unknown    Submitted by Foo Ji-Wei, Volunteerism Through Oneself, Nanyang Technological University, Welfare Services Club, Singapore    

If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is tied up with mine, then let us work together.

--Lill Watson, aboriginal activist    Submitted by Keith Goheen, Volunteer Coordinator, First State Community Action Agency, Delaware USA    
You make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give.
--Winston Churchill    Submitted by Elise Slobodin, Planning Executive, UJA-Federation, New York USA    

No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor is given by what he gave.

--Calvin Coolidge    Submitted by Joe Hammontree, 4-H AmeriCorps VISTA, Shiawassee MSU Extension, Michigan, USA    

Too often we under-estimate 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.

--Dr. Felice Leonardo Buscaglia    Submitted by several colleagues    

To serve, not to be served.

--The charge to service for AARP members from Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, AARP founder    Submitted by Carolyn Hunter, ASD, AARP Utah, USA    

Don't ever question the value of volunteers. Noah's Ark was built by volunteers; the Titanic was built by professionals. 

--Unknown    Submitted by Dave Gynn, Coleman Professional Services, Ohio, USA    

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.

--Sue Premo, WI    Submitted by Marjorie Moore, Minds Eye Information Service    

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

--Charles D. Gill    Submitted by Caitlin Rohrer, Girl Scouts - Trillium Council, Pennsylvania    

The highest reward for a person's work is not what they get for it, but what they become because of it. 

--John Ruskin    Submitted by Caitlin Rohrer, Girl Scouts, Trillium Council, Pennsylvania    

If you insist on measuring yourself, place the tape around your heart rather than your head.

--Carol Trabelle    Submitted by Caitlin Rohrer, Girl Scouts, Trillium Council, Pennsylvania    

At the end of our life our questions are simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well?

--Jack Kornfield    Submitted by Caitlin Rohrer, Girl Scouts, Trillium Council, Pennsylvania    

Success in life has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It's what you do for others.

--Danny Thomas    Submitted by Jack Gomez, Girl Scounts of Shagbark Council, Illinois    

Paul Revere earned his living as a silversmith.   But what do we remember him for?  His volunteer work.  All activism is volunteering in that it's done above and beyond earning a living and deals with what people really care passionately about.  Remember, no one gets paid to rebel.  All revolutions start with volunteers.

--Susan J. Ellis    Submitted by Susan in response to a workshop participant who heard Susan say this and wanted it shared.    

Silence equals nonexistence. If I don't raise my voice, it's like I never existed.

--Margaret Cho, Comedienne Revolution    Submitted by Jennifer Smerud    

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

--Mercy Mission Kenya    Submitted by Henri Nouwen    

Help yourself. Volunteer.
So what's holding you back? Volunteer today.
Don't just stand there. Volunteer.
Do the right thing. Volunteer.

--Unknown    Submitted by Ahmed Amin     

Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

--Margaret Mead    Submitted by Maureen Stenquist    

Volunteering is not a choice, it's a responsibility.

--Unknown    Submitted by Ashley E. Hyder    

Someone asked the anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978), "What is the first sign you look for, to tell you of an ancient civilization?" The interviewer had in mind a tool or article of clothing. Ms. Mead surprised him by answering, a "healed femur". When someone breaks a femur, they can't survive to hunt, fish or escape enemies unless they have help from someone else. Thus, a healed femur indicates that someone else helped that person, rather than abandoning them and saving themselves. Isn't that what we in philanthropy are all about? Healing femurs of one sort or another?

--Unknown    Submitted by Leslie Paige    

Volunteers are seldom paid; not because they are worthless, but because they are PRICELESS!

--Unknown    Submitted by Jana Baker    

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and help them become what they are capable of being.   

--Goethe    Submitted by Elizabeth Ellis    

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