Quotations on Making a Difference
"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth."
(Mohammed Ali)
"If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one."
(Mother Teresa)
"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."
(William James)
"It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little - do what you can."
(Sydney Smith)
"Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others."
(Saint Augustine)
"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)
"If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito."
(Betty Reese)
"Every action in our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity."
(Edwin Hubbel Chapin)
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
(Mahatma Ghandi)
"There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love."
(Mother Teresa)
"To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right."
(Confucius)
"There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."
(Aldous Huxley)
"People don't understand that not only can they make a difference, it's their responsibility to do so"
(Florence Robinson)
"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."
(Winston Churchill)
"We all have ability. The difference is how we use it."
Stevie Wonder
"We can do no great things, only small things with great love."
(Mother Teresa)
""How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
(Anne Frank)
"There are two ways of spreading light - to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."
(Edith Wharton, Vesalius in Zante)
"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."
(Horace Mann)
"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal."
(Albert Pikel
It seems to me that any full grown, mature adult would have a desire to be responsible, to help where he can in a world that needs so very much, that threatens us so very much.
Norman Lear
I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.
William Penn
Improvement begins with I.
Arnold Glasow
The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.
Benjamin Disraeli
It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference.
Tom Brokaw
Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.
Ayn Rand
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Lord loveth a cheerful giver. He also accepteth from a grouch.
Catherine Hall
We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.
C.G. Jung
If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.
Cicero
"To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right."
Confucius
"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."
John Wooden
"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."
Edmund Burke
"Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him."
Albert Schweitzer
"This is the true joy in life - being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."
George Bernard Shaw
"It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference."
Tom Brokaw
"He who gives when he is asked has waited too long."
Sunshine Magazine
"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit."
Nelson Henderson
"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
"The only gift is a portion of thyself."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."
Winston Churchill
"The deed is everything, the glory naught."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"The great use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it."
William James
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I... I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
Robert Frost
"Live simply that others might simply live."
Elizabeth Seaton
"I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world."
Mother Teresa
"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."
Buddha
"If you have much, give of your wealth; if you have little, give of your heart."
Arabian Proverb
"Charity sees the need, not the cause."
German Proverb
"Things of the spirit differ from things material in that the more you give the more you have."
Christopher Morley
"We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee."
Marian Wright Edelman
"Find a need and fill it."
Ruth Stafford Peale
"We must overcome the notion that we must be regular... it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre."
Uta Hagen
"If we could all hear one another's prayers, God might be relieved of some of his burdens."
Ashleigh Brilliant
"You're the only one who can make the difference. Whatever your dream is, go for it."
Earvin "Magic" Johnson
"Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light."
Norman B. Rice
"You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."
Kahlil Gibran
"I've seen and met angels wearing the disguise of ordinary people living ordinary lives."
Tracy Chapman