Quotes on Volunteering
(Reflections)
There are many wonderful things that will never be done if
you don't do them. - Charles D. Gill
Submitted on 2 November 2004 by Caitlin Rohrer, Girl
Scouts - Trillium Council, Pennsylvania
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.
Submitted on 26 October 2004 by Marjorie
Moore, Minds Eye Information Service, Belleville, IL, USA
Don't ever question the value of volunteers. Noah's Ark was
built by volunteers; the Titanic was built by professionals.
Submitted on 8 Septemer 2004 by Dave Gynn, Coleman
Professional Services, Ohio, USA
To serve, not to be served.
--The charge to service for AARP members from Dr. Ethel Percy
Andrus, AARP founder
Submitted on 6 September 2004 by Carolyn Hunter,
ASD, AARP Utah, 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 on 12 August 2004 by Marjorie Moore, Minds
Eye Information Service, Belleville, IL, USA
No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor is
given by what he gave. -- Calvin Coolidge
Submitted on 7 July 2004 by Joe Hammontree, 4-H AmeriCorps
VISTA, Shiawassee MSU Extension, Michigan, USA
You make a living by what you get, but you make a life by
what you give. -- Winston
Churchill
Submitted on 17 June 2004 by Elise Slobodin, Planning Executive, UJA-Federation,
New York USA
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 on 15 June 2004 by Keith
Goheen, Volunteer Coordinator, First State Community Action Agency,
Delaware USA
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.
Submitted on 9June2004 by Foo Ji-Wei, Volunteerism
Through Oneself, Nanyang Technological University, Welfare Services
Club, Singapore
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 on 26 May 2004 by Nicolette Ryan, Volunteer
Coordinator, Central Arizona Shelter Services, Phoenix, AZ
It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference.
-- Tom Brokaw
Submitted on 16 April 2004 by Cathie Waugh, Volunteer
Coordinator, Habitat for Humanity, Colorado
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 25 March 2004
by Susan Ellis
Free Quotation Postcards
can be sent from The Giraffe Project's motivating Web site at http://www.giraffe.org/postcards.php.
Also, the Foundation Center has a list of sites in answer to the FAQ,
"Where can I find online quotations regarding the value
of philanthropy?" See: http://fdncenter.org/learn/faqs/html/quotes.html
Posted on 25 March 2004
by Susan Ellis.
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 on 14Feb2004 by Fiona Dawe, Executive
Director, YouthNet, London, England
The Winds of change shall not discourage the volunteer.
--Lorna Wilson
Submitted by self, Ontario Agri-Food Education Inc.,
Ontario, Canada
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 New Hampshire,
USA, 10Nov2003
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the women and
men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach
them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery,
The Wisdom of the Sands
(quoted at the end of an e-mail from Georgean C. Johnson-Coffey)
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.
-- DeAnn Hollis
Submitted by DeAnn Hollis
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, Minnesota, USA
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 (from
Building Staff/Volunteer Relations)
Submitted by Claudia Collier, Director, Volunteer
Center of the YMCA, Mankato MN, USA
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, Michigan
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
To the world you may be one person, But to one person you
may be the world.
-- Anonymous
Submited by Amanda Hughes, Community Involvement Assistant
Your hands may be empty but your heart is full.
--Unknown
Submitted by Dee Smith, Texas
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
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
If you can't go where people are happier, try to make people
happier where you are.
- Ashleigh Brilliant
Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and
in truth. - I John 3:18
Better one friend with a dish of food than a hundred with
a sigh. - Yiddish proverb
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 MI
Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
-- Submitted by Pamela Morse, Member Services
Coordinator, AmeriCorps Alums, Washington, DC
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., Jacksonville, FL
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, West Virginia, USA
They don't care how much you know, until they know how much you
care.
Submitted by Desire'e Larson, Women's Way, North Dakota
Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program, ND/USA
I'm in the business of loving the hell out of people - Mother
Waddles
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have
to do - Epictetus
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity - Horace
Mann
The mode in which the inevitable comes to pass is through effort -
Oliver Wendell Holmes
I hate quotations - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Submitted by Mike Corbin, Membership Chair, Metropolitan
Detroit Volunteer Administration Network, Michigan
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, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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.
--self & good friend Margaret
Submitted by Nita Moser, Volunteer Coordinator, Battered
Women's Project, Maine
"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.
--The word "empathy".
Submitted by Abdul Manan Bin Hassan, ASP, PRIS DEPT,
Changi, Singapore
He who does nothing for others does nothing for himself
--Goethe
Submitted by Susan E. Koch, Luther Crest Vol. Dir.,
PA.
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.
--Albert Schweitzer
Submitted by Deborah Stroup, Coordinator of Volunteers,
Wolfner Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, MO
Life is never so busy that there is no time to serve.
Submitted by Sharon Tan, , Singapore
Volunteerism is the voice of the people put into action. These
actions shape and mold the present into a future of which we can all
be proud.
--Helen Dyer
Submitted by Helen Dyer, Parks Funding and Volunteer
Coordinator, Teller County, CO Division of Parks, Colorado, USA
We are all like one-winged angels. It is only when we help each
other that we can fly.
--Luciano de Crescenzo
Submitted by Lori Ropa, American Water Works Association,
Denver, CO USA
I am a recipient of unconditional love, I am a volunteer
--Shanterra McBride, Eduactional Director at the Empower Program
in Washington DC
Submitted by Talisha McClaney, Volunteer Coordinator-
LPH, Texas
"A civilization flourishes when people plant trees under
which they will never sit."
--Greek Proverb
Submitted by Judy Gross, Volunteer Coordinator, Central
Blood Bank of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
"One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of
being happy is doing things for other people. "
--Dick Gregory
Submitted by Linda Hutchinson, Volunteer Coordinator,
Victim Services Program, Mountain Comprehensive Care Center, Kentucky
USA
"Destiny is not necessarily what we get out of life, but rather,
what we give."
--Cary Grant
Submitted by Diego Ojanio Franco, Chairman, The Cedarwork
Project, Inc., Quezon City, Philippines
"The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service
of others."
--~Ghandi
Submitted by Jackie Lonning, Co-VP of Scheduling, Student
M.O.V.E. (Mobilizing Outreach Volunteer Efforts), Storm Lake, IA,
USA
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we
must do.
-- Goethe
Submitted by Dorman Stanley, CONTACT Lubbock, Texas
Some people see things as they are and say 'why', I look at things
that never were and say 'why not'.
--Robert F. Kennedy
Submitted by Emma, North Carolina, USA
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