Quotes on Volunteering
(Words to Inspire)

We list our newest submissions first...come back and see what's new! All the items in this area are submitted by site visitors.   Energize requires that the source be credited for all quoted works.

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Submitted August 4 2009 by Zoe Mckenzie

When someone shares something of value with you and you benefit from it, you have a moral obligation to share it with others.
-- Chinese Proverb
Submitted August 3 2009 by Jennifer Cali

A New Zealand Maori Proverb
Ko taku rourou
Ko tau rou rou
Ka ora te tangata

With my resources
And your resources
Everyone will benefit
Submitted July 6 2009 by Ann F. Hodson

Let some else acknowledge your virtues. (Waiho ma te tangata e mihi.)
-- A New Zealand Maori Proverb
Submitted July 6 2009 by Ann F. Hodson

How to be of value: Stare into a bucket of water until your reflection appears. Then gently pour the reflection out onto the ground. Soon it will evaporate amd become a cloud. Then it will rain and you will be part of the great cycle of replensihment and growth.
--Michael Leung
Submitted July 6 2009 by Ann F. Hodson

It wasn't the reward that mattered or the recognition you might harvest. It was your depth of commitment, your quality of service, the product of your devotion -- these were the things that counted in life. When you gave purely, the honor in giving, and that was honor enough.
--Captain Scott O'Grady
Submitted on June 29 2009 by Kristyna

One Hundred Years From Now...
One Hundred years from now it will not matter what kind of house you lived in... what kind of car you drove... what your bank balance was...
but what will matter is that you were important in the life of a child.
-- Adapted from a quote by Forest Witcraft
Submitted on June 17 2009 by Lynn Hamilton

"[I am a co-creator], an active agent in this universe who makes things happen. If I want the world to change, I have to change it."
--Danah Zohar
Submitted on December 2, 2008 by Renee Harms

And of all glad words
of prose or rhyme,
The gladdest are
"Act while there
yet is time"
--Franklin P. Adams
Submitted on November 5, 2008 by Pat Spain

It just feels like through our little projects and visits, we are being the hands and feet of God.
Found in a newspaper and quoted by "Women from Faith" a United Metodist group located in Wolcott, NY..(This would be regarding volunteering in nursing homes.)
Submitted on November 4, 2008 by Linda Geno

Discover why some of the richest people in the world are not millionaires, they are volunteers.
Submitted on October 21, 2008 by Jobail Brcelona

I always wondered why somebody didn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.
--Lily Tomlin
Submitted on September 29, 2008 by Joyce Flaugher

Opportunity + Preparedness = Success.  Volunteer to help others be prepared for the opportunities afforded them.
Submitted on July 21, 2008 by Rick Wery

If you don't have any charity in your heart you have the worst kind of heart trouble.    
-- Bob Hope
Submitted on July 3, 2008 by Judi Reed

The human contribution is the essential ingredient. It is only in the giving of oneself to others that we truly live.
-- Ethel Percy Andrus
Submitted on 21 April by Lindsey Garner

In order to motivate others, you must first become a source of motivation by yourself. It simply means that if you want to get anything done through others, you must first do it yourself.
-- Hazrat Ilyas Attar Qadri  
Submitted on 15 March 2008 by Muhammad Umer Attari

If just one person believes in you
Deep enough and strong enough
Believes in you hard enough and long enough
Before you knew it, someone else would think "If he can do it, I can do it"
Making it two.
Two whole people who believe in you.
And maybe even you can believe in you too.
-- Robin and the Muppet Gang, from "It's Not Easy Being Green and Other Things to Consider"
Submitted on February 15, 2008 by April

When you volunteer it means you give yourself without any regression, without condition, but with full devotion...
Submitted on February 15, 2008 by Faith Tomaquin

What the mind of a Man can conceive and believe, he can achieve.
Submitted on February 15, 2008 by Albert Kwansa-Adjei

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and help them become what they are capable of being.   
--Goethe
Submitted on February 15, 2008 by Elizabeth Ellis

Volunteers are seldom paid; not because they are worthless, but because they are PRICELESS!
--author unknown
Submitted on February 20, 2008 by Jana Baker

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?
Submitted on 8 November 2007 by Leslie Paige

There are volunteering quotations on the following websites that I love getting ideas from:

Submitted on 30 May 2007 by Laura Dilts

Volunteering is not a choice, it's a responsibility.
Submitted on 17 April 2007 by Ashley E. Hyder

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 on 2 February 2007 by Maureen Stenquist

Help yourself. Volunteer.
So what's holding you back? Volunteer today.
Don't just stand there. Volunteer.
Do the right thing. Volunteer.
Submitted on 12 July 2006 by Ahmed Amin

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.

--Henri Nouwen
Submitted on 16 January 2006 by Mercy Mission Kenya

Silence equals nonexistence. If I don't raise my voice, it's like I never existed.
--Margaret Cho, Comedienne Revolution
Submitted on 4 February 2005 by Jennifer Smerud

Do all you can with what you have, in the time you have, in the place you are.
-- Nkosi Johnson, a Zulu boy, born into dire poverty while also being infected with AIDS, who died at the age of 12.  Found in Jim Wooten's new book, "We Are All the Same: A Story of a Boy's Courage and a Mother's Love."
Submitted on 4 December 2004 by Ed Madara, Director, American Self-Help Group Clearinghouse, USA

A VOLUNTEER is a person who is a light to others, giving witness in a mixed-up age, doing well and willingly the tasks at hand-namely, being aware of another's needs and doing something about it.

A VOLUNTEER is a person who remembers to do the thing to make other people happy, who takes the loneliness out of the alone by talking to them, who is concerned when others are unconcerned, who has the courage to be a prophet and to say the things that have to be said for the good of all.

A VOLUNTEER is a person whose charity is fidelity, who is faithful in an unfaithful world, grateful in an ungrateful world, giving when all about are grasping, listening when others need to tell about their fears and problems.
-- from "The Beacon," newsletter of Birthrite, South Africa
Submitted 18 November 2004 by Marjorie Moore, Minds Eye Information Service, Belleville, IL

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
Posted 16 November 2004 by request of a workshop participant who heard Susan say this and wanted it shared.

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 on 15 November 2004 by Jack Gomez, Girl Scounts of Shagbark Council, Illinois

At the end of our life our questions are simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well? -- Jack Kornfield
Submitted on 2 November 2004 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 on 2 November 2004 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 on 2 November 2004 by Caitlin Rohrer, Girl Scouts, Trillium Council, Pennsylvania

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