62 Inspiring Service Quotes

In a world where acts of service can profoundly impact individuals and communities, words of inspiration hold immense power. Whether you're a professional in customer service, a volunteer, or someone who simply enjoys making a difference, a few wise words can reignite your passion and drive. We've curated a collection of the top 62 inspiring service quotes to help you stay motivated and remind you of the unique value each act of kindness holds. Join us as we explore these timeless nuggets of wisdom that celebrate the spirit of service and the profound ripple effects it creates in our world.

1. “This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.” - Walt Whitman

2. “I'm inspired by the people I meet in my travels--hearing their stories, seeing the hardships they overcome, their fundamental optimism and decency. I'm inspired by the love people have for their children. And I'm inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man.” - Barack Obama

3. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” - Mahatma Gandhi

4. “In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

5. “Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.” - Marian Wright Edelman

6. “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” - Barack Obama

7. “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

8. “Don't mistake activity with achievement.” - John Wooden

9. “God does watch over us and does notice us, but it usually through someone else that he meets our needs.” - Spencer W. Kimball

10. “Moreover, if great men are the only hope of the Evolutionary Process, they are morally bound to rule over the masses for their own good -- we are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don't know -- and the masses have no right whatsoever to resist them.” - W.H. Auden

11. “We are not called upon to do all the good that is possible, but only that which we can do.” - Theodore Guerin

12. “The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.” - Sir Robert Baden-Powell

13. “Perhaps when we face our maker, we will not be asked, 'How many positions did you hold,' but rather, 'How many people did you help?” - Thomas S. Monson

14. “For the admirable gift of himself, and for the magnificent service he renders humanity, what reward does our society offer the scientist? Have these servants of an idea the necessary means of work? Have they an assured existence, sheltered from care? The example of Pierre Curiee, and of others, shows that they have none of these things; and that more often, before they can secure possible working conditions, they have to exhaust their youth and their powers in daily anxieties. Our society, in which reigns an eager desire for riches and luxury, does not understand the value of science. It does not realize that science is a most precious part of its moral patrimony. Nor does it take sufficient cognizance of the fact that science is at the base of all the progress that lightens the burden of life and lessens its suffering. Neither public powers nor private generosity actually accord to science and to scientists the support and the subsidies indispensable to fully effective work.” - Marie Curie

15. “Many times when we help we do not really serve. . . . Serving is also different from fixing. One of the pioneers of the Human Potential Movement, Abraham Maslow, said, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.' Seeing yourself as a fixer may cause you to see brokenness everywhere, to sit in judgment of life itself. When we fix others, we may not see their hidden wholeness or trust the integrity of the life in them. Fixers trust their own expertise. When we serve, we see the unborn wholeness in others; we collaborate with it and strengthen it. Others may then be able to see their wholeness for themselves for the first time.” - Rachel Remen

16. “True leaders understand that leadership is not about them but about those they serve. It is not about exalting themselves but about lifting others up.” - Sheri L. Dew

17. “The Simple PathSilence is PrayerPrayer is FaithFaith is LoveLove is ServiceThe Fruit of Service is Peace” - Mother Teresa

18. “If you can't do great things, Mother Teresa used to say, do little things with great love. If you can't do them with great love, do them with a little love. If you can't do them with a little love, do them anyway.Love grows when people serve.” - John Ortberg

19. “I don't want my life to be defined by what is etched on a tombstone. I want it to be defined by what is etched in the lives and hearts of those I've touched.” - Steve Maraboli

20. “Love is not patronizing and charity isn't about pity, it is about love. Charity and love are the same -- with charity you give love, so don't just give money but reach out your hand instead.” - Mother Teresa

21. “Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul.” - Rachel Naomi Remen

22. “Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. - John Adams” - David McCullough

23. “There’s one thing about getting somebody to help you though…you got to take whatever it looks like - their kind of help. And you can’t be choosin what you like and don’t like. Help is a take it or leave it kind of thing, and if you can’t take it like it comes, might as well leave it, cause it’s gonna be more trouble than it’s worth.” - Todd Johnson

24. “Those who unlock your compassion are those to whom you've been assigned.” - Mike Murdock

25. “Love is a selfless service to mankind like a showcase done by the twinkling stars in beautiful nightly sky.” - Santosh Kalwar

26. “A man who goes into a restaurant and blatantly disrespects the servers shows a strong discontent with his own being. Deep down he knows that restaurant service is the closest thing he will ever experience to being served like a king.” - Criss Jami

27. “Man is a fallen star till he is right with heaven: he is out of order with himself and all around him till he occupies his true place in relation to God. When he serves God, he has reached that point where he doth serve himself best, and enjoys himself most. It is man's honour, it is man's joy, it is man's heaven, to live unto God.” - Charles H. Spurgeon

28. “Stale godliness is ungodliness. Let our religion be as warm, and constant, and natural as the flow of the blood in our veins. A living God must be served in a living way.” - Charles H. Spurgeon

29. “Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.” - Booker T. Washington

30. “Service is the measure of greatness; it always has been true; it is true today, and it always will be true, that he is greatest who does the most of good. Nearly all of our controversies and combats grow out of the fact that we are trying to get something from each other--there will be peace when our aim is to do something for each other. The human measure of a human life is its income; the divine measure of a life is its outgo, its overflow--its contribution to the welfare of all.” - William Jennings Bryan

31. “Why don't people ask us about our hope? The answer is probably that we look as if we hope in the same things they do. Our lives don't look like they are on the Calvary road, stripped down for sacrificial love, serving others with the sweet assurance that we don't need to be rewarded in this life.” - John Piper

32. “When you put yourself in the customer’s shoes and begin your dialog from there, an immediate connection develops that stems beyond basic commerce and encourages loyalty.” - Steve Maraboli

33. “I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve becuase I love Jesus.” - Mother Teresa

34. “Service to others in their time of need is a privilege and an honor.” - Harley King

35. “Christmas is our annual reminder to look up—pondering celestial stars, to look out—serving those in need, and to look down—glorifying our Lord in humble prayer.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

36. “Yes, of course we could all use some help. There isn't a person alive without a need. So don't ask the silly question, just figure out how you're going to help and do it!” - Richelle E. Goodrich

37. “A true Christian does not judge whether a person is worthy of help, but only judges a need and how to best meet that need.” - Toni Sorenson

38. “It is not about how intelligent you are or how good you score in exam but it is about how helpful you are and how much you made people happy” - Vijay Dhameliya

39. “Patriotism is a thing difficult to put into words. It is neither precisely an emotion nor an opinion, nor a mandate, but a state of mind -- a reflection of our own personal sense of worth, and respect for our roots. Love of country plays a part, but it's not merely love. Neither is it pride, although pride too is one of the ingredients.Patriotism is a commitment to what is best inside us all. And it's a recognition of that wondrous common essence in our greater surroundings -- our school, team, city, state, our immediate society -- often ultimately delineated by our ethnic roots and borders... but not always.Indeed, these border lines are so fluid... And we do not pay allegiance as much as we resonate with a shared spirit.We all feel an undeniable bond with the land where we were born. And yet, if we leave it for another, we grow to feel a similar bond, often of a more complex nature. Both are forms of patriotism -- the first, involuntary, by birth, the second by choice.Neither is less worthy than the other.But one is earned.” - Vera Nazarian

40. “I would never want to reach out someday with a soft, uncallused hand-a hand never dirtied by serving-and shake the nail-pierced hand of Jesus.” - Bill Hybels

41. “Let us choose life and love, and happily use our selves up in loving service to one another.” - Doris Haddock

42. “I'm starting to think this world is just a place for us to learn that we need each other more than we want to admit.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

43. “Wanting help, I reached out to serve. Seeking happiness, I smiled and offered comfort. Yearning for love, I showed love. And now I understand. My life was never about me, it was always about you.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

44. “You can find Calcutta anywhere in the world. You only need two eyes to see. Everywhere in the world there are people that are not loved, people that are not wanted nor desired, people that no one will help, people that are pushed away or forgotten. And this is the greatest poverty.” - Mother Theresa

45. “There are these amazing little seeds called compassion.  You should grow some.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

46. “Whenever, wherever, however You want me, I'll go. And I'll begin this very minute. Lord, as I stand up from this place, and as I take my first step forward, will You consider this is a step toward complete obedience to You? I'll call it the step of yes.” - Brother Andrew

47. “The Church is the Church only when it exists for others...not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

48. “It is not what you leave to your children that matters, but what you leave in them.” - Shannon L. Alder

49. “You have to lift a person up before you can really put them in their place.” - Criss Jami

50. “The oblivion fear is something else, fear that I won't be able to give anything in exchange for my life. If you don't live a life in service of a greater good, you've gotta at least die a death in service of a greater good, you know? And I fear that I won't get either a life or a death that means anything.” - John Green

51. “We never think lightly of those who walk with us on our uphill days.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

52. “My generosity must bear a cost or there’d be no value in what you gain from it. There’d be no second thought for me, the tiny, humble mankin who came to save you. Is it right for a desperate soul to expect redemption for nothing? No. No, no. So, tell me, child, what will you give me in exchange for my services?"- from "Dimpellumpzki” - Richelle E. Goodrich

53. “Graciousness in serving and being served marks the lives of leaders who have made the largest impact on my life.” - Sue Mallory

54. “Dedicate some of your life to others. Your dedication will not be a sacrifice. It will be an exhilarating experience because it is an intense effort applied toward a meaningful end.” - Thomas Dooley

55. “It takes a female to have a baby,It takes a woman to raise a child,It takes a mother to raise them correctly,It takes a warrior to show them how to change the world.” - Shannon L. Alder

56. “May your heart open.May joy emerge.May love flow through you.May you heal and help others.” - Charlene Costanzo

57. “He who wishes to serve his country must have not only the power to think, but the will to act” - Plato

58. “Every game is winnable if you change your mind about what the prize should be and your perspective about the players at the table.” - Shannon L. Alder

59. “Verily, a man should not cling to those who have passed, for he will likely neglect service to the living.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

60. “Service and gratitude will fuel your relationship; entitlement and expectation will poison it.” - Steve Maraboli

61. “The highest distinction is service to others.” - Max Brooks

62. “She was the kind of shopkeeper who finishes the paragraph she is reading before waiting on the customer.” - Cornell Woolrich