60 Inspirational Quotes About Volunteering

Volunteering—giving of time, skills, and help—is a practice we want to cultivate in kids. Volunteering quotes are those inspiring words that explain why we volunteer, what it means to others, and how we can all contribute to the greater good.

National Volunteer Week is the fourth week of April, a great time to plan a volunteering event or reinforce the importance of volunteering. Use these 60 quotes about volunteering to spark conversation about service and how we spend our time.

Quotes About the Act of Volunteering

A volunteer, you assign yourself specific roles and risks according to your judgement of their brilliance and importance, and you see when life itself may be justifiably devoted to them. -Michel de Montaigne

Volunteer. Sometimes the jobs no one wants conceal big opportunities. -H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Volunteering to help others is the right thing to do, and it also boosts personal happiness. -Gretchen Rubin

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” -Fred Rogers

I encouraged them, each who was able, to serve the Fatherland. … I have done this [volunteered] because I must be a good example for my community. -Clemens August Graf von Galen

Volunteering Quotes About Helping and Serving Others

Helping others is not limited to providing food, shelter, and so forth, but includes relieving the basic causes of suffering and providing the basic causes of happiness. -Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother. -President Theodore Roosevelt

We can benefit others through our actions by being warm and generous toward them, by being charitable, and by helping those in need. -Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

If you ever need a helping hand, it’s at the end of your arm. As you get older, you must remember you have a second hand. The first one is to help yourself, the second one is to help others. -Audrey Hepburn

There is nothing to make you like other human beings so much as doing things for them. -Zora Neale Hurston

Everybody can be great because everybody can serve. … You only need a heart full of grace. -Martin Luther King Jr.

Service is the rent that you pay for room on this earth. -Shirley Chisholm

True charity requires courage: Let us overcome the fear of getting our hands dirty so as to help those in need. -Pope Francis

We must cultivate a universal responsibility toward each other and extend it to the planet that we have to share. -Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Volunteering Quotes About Changing the World

Do your little bit of good where you are. It’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. -Desmond Tutu

If we’re going to change the world for the better, kids need to know that they can by feeling good about who they are and helping others. -Dorothy Koomson

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead

If people volunteered in the same way to construct schools or roads or even clear the river of plastic wrappers, by God, Pakistan would become a paradise within a year. -Malala Yousafzai

It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving. -Mother Teresa

Volunteering Quotes About Making a Difference

Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something. -Henry David Thoreau

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

What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? -Winston Churchill

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost. -Arthur Ashe

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: what are you doing for others? -Martin Luther King Jr.

I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings. -Margaret Mead

So you never know who you touch. You never know how or when you’ll have an impact, or how important your example can be to someone else. -Denzel Washington

The charity that is a trifle to us can be precious to others. -Homer

As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another. -John Stuart Mill

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

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

Volunteering Quotes About the Greater Good

We can neither heal nor build if, on the one hand the rich in our society see the poor as hordes of irritants or if on the other hand the poor sit back, expecting charity. All of us must take responsibility for the upliftment of our conditions, prepared to give our best to the benefit of all. -Nelson Mandela

Through universal altruism, you develop a feeling of responsibility for others: the wish to help them actively overcome their problems. -Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Citizenship demands participation and responsibility, and service to our country and to one another. -President Barack Obama

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other. -President Barack Obama

And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. -President John F. Kennedy

Volunteering Quotes About Life

From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life. -Arthur Ashe

Not one of us knows what effect his life produces, and what he gives to others; that is hidden from us and must remain so, though we are often allowed to see some little fraction of it, so that we may not lose courage. -Albert Schweitzer

At the end of the day, it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished. It’s about what you’ve done with those accomplishments. It’s about who you’ve lifted up, who you’ve made better. It’s about what you’ve given back. -Denzel Washington

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. -Nelson Henderson

True compassion is not just an emotional response, but a firm commitment founded on reason. Therefore, a truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change, even if they behave negatively. –Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? -Winston Churchill

I believe in one thing—that only a life lived for others is a life worth living. -Albert Einstein

Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go. -Mother Teresa

Volunteering Quotes About Giving

What you will receive in return varies. But it really has no connection with what you give. You give because you love and cannot help giving. -Katharine Hepburn

The manner of giving is worth more than the gift. -Peter Cornielle

There can be no greater gift than that of giving one’s time and energy to help others without expecting anything in return. -Nelson Mandela

All you have shall some day be given. Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors. -Kahlil Gibran

Just because we cannot do everything for everyone does not mean we should do nothing for anyone. -Bill Clinton

Volunteering Quotes About People

When a noble deed is done, who is likely to appreciate it? They who are noble themselves. -Henry David Thoreau

The best gift anyone can give, I believe, is the gift of sharing themselves. -Oprah Winfrey

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

Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more. -H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Volunteers have enriched the lives of every Canadian and asked nothing for themselves. Now we will honour the hidden helpers and the unsung heroes of Canada. It is time to give something back to the givers. -Romeo LeBlanc

Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves. We must purposely be kind and generous, or we miss the best part of existence. -Horace Mann

The heart which goes out of itself gets large and full. This is the great secret of the inner life. We do ourselves the most good doing something for others. -Horace Mann

Truly great people in history never wanted to be great for themselves. All they wanted was the chance to do good for others and be close to God. -Muhammad Ali

He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart. -Charles Dickens

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love. -Henry Drummond

UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not. -Dr. Seuss

Want more quotes? Check out 100+ Inspiring Quotes About Success.

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