With so many people who are less fortunate than us not being able to travel, and with the drastic reduction in social service resources, volunteering is becoming increasingly important today.
From immigrants fleeing violent conflict to disadvantaged children in need of education and homeless people in need of housing, volunteers have the means to make a difference. Perhaps the biggest benefit of volunteering is that it benefits individuals, their communities, and the volunteers themselves.
Here at CreativeVolunteer, we build our business based on the principles of fighting for a better world. We hope that the following 52 quotations about volunteering will inspire you to give something back, devoting time, energy, and resources to things that matter most to you.
1. “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
2. “The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.”
– Oscar Wilde
3. “You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”
– Kahlil Gibran
4. “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
– Author Unknown
5. “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
6. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
7. “We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.”
– Herman Melville
8. “Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns.”
– Author Unknown
9. “One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind.”
– Malayan Proverb
10. “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.
11. “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.”
– Author Unknown
12. “Volunteers are love in motion!”
– Author Unknown
13. “It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference. ”
– Tom Brokaw
14. “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
15. “No one is more cherished in this world than someone who lightens the burden of another.”
– Author Unknown
16. “Help one another. There’s no time like the present, and no present like the time.”
– James Durst
17. “Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.”
― H. Jackson Brown Jr.
18. “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
– William James
19. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
– Dr. Seuss
20. “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
21. “If you become a helper of hearts, springs of wisdom will flow from your heart.”
– Rumi
22. “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
23. “Volunteers don’t get paid, not because they’re worthless, but because they’re priceless.”
– Sherry Anderson
24. “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
25. “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
26. “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
— Winston Churchill
27. “The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.”
– Thomas Carlyle
28. “Even if you just change one life, you’ve changed the world forever.”
– Mike Satterfield
29. “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”
— William Shakespeare
30. “Our generation has the ability and the responsibility to make our ever-more connected world a more hopeful, stable and peaceful place.”
— Natalie Portman
31. “If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.”
– Betty Reese
32. “The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”
– Nelson Henderson
33. “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
34. “Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.”
– Henry David Thoreau
35. “While earning your daily bread, be sure you share a slice with those less fortunate.”
– Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
36. “Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.”
– Seneca
37. “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
38. “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
39. “Being good is commendable, but only when it is combined with doing good is it useful.”
– Author Unknown
40. “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
41. “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
42. “As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands — one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”
— Audrey Hepburn
43. “Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.”
– James Matthew Barrie
44. “The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.”
– John E. Southard
45. “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.”
– Mother Teresa
46. “The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.”
— Helen Keller
47. “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
– Anne Frank
48. “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.”
– Author Unknown
49. “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.”
— Muhammad Ali
50. “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
51. “Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart.”
– Elizabeth Andrew
52. “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
Volunteer Quotes to Inspire Yourself
There you have it; 52 quotes about volunteering that should inspire you to do what you can to help your neighbors, the community, your world.
If you would like to know more about helping, check out CreativeVolunteer. We can make it simple, affordable, and impactful in return for your skills and time. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach us at contact@volunteer-opportunities.org.
Side note: If you are a part of an organization that would perhaps be interested in becoming a partner of CreativeVolunteer, feel free to reach out to our team about the necessary moves we can take to work together toward your cause at partners@volunteer-opportunities.org.