serving others

The highest service we can perform for others
is to help them help themselves.

Horace Mann

  

Everybody can be great. . . because anybody can serve.
You don't have to have a college degree to serve. . . .
You only need a heart full of grace.  A soul generated by love.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

  

We weaken the value of our gifts of service by adding to them love of praise of others, honor, or material profit.  Our goal is simply the love of God, without any other consideration whatsoever.  Not only does this unseen service help the individual being served and especially the one serving, but it also helps people who know nothing of them.  Seeing this act of unselfish giving, they are encouraged to do little acts of kindness themselves.  They sense that the real motive behind the service runs far deeper than the service act and are thus inspired in their own faith.

C.M.M.

  

The Sweetest Lives
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The sweetest lives are those to duty wed,
Whose deeds, both great and small,
Are close-knit strands of unbroken thread
Where love ennobles all.
The world may sound no trumpets, ring no bells;
The book of life the shining record tells.

The love shall chant its own beatitudes
After its own life working.  A child's kiss
Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad;
A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong;
Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense
Of service which thous renderest.

   

   

Doing nothing for others is the undoing of one’s self.
We must be purposely kind and generous, or we miss the
best part of existence.  The heart that goes out of itself,
gets large and full of joy.  This is the great secret of
the inner life.  We do ourselves the most good
doing something for others.

Horace Mann

  
  
As a young doctor, I thought that serving life was a thing of drama and action
and split-second judgment calls.  A question of going sleepless and riding in
ambulances and outwitting the angel of death.  A role open only to those who
have prepared themselves for years.  Service was larger than ordinary life,
and those who served were larger than life also.  But I know now that this is
only the least part of the nature of service.  That service is small and quiet and
everywhere.  That far more often we serve by who we are and not what we
know.  And everyone serves whether they know it or not.
   We bless the life around us far more than we realize.  Many simple, ordinary
things that we do can affect those around us in profound ways:  the unexpected
phone call, the brief touch, the willingness to listen generously, the warm smile
or wink of recognition.  All it may take to restore someone's trust in life may be
returning a lost earring or a dropped glove.

Rachel Naomi Remen

   
  

It is high time the ideal of success should be
replaced with the ideal of service.

Albert Einstein

  

Service is the rent we pay
for our place on earth.

Shirley Chisholm

Great opportunities to help others seldom come,
but small ones surround us daily.

Sally Koch

Often we can help each other most by leaving
each other alone; at other times we need the
hand-grasp and the word of cheer.

Elbert Hubbard

One of the things I keep learning is that the
secret of being happy is doing things for other people.

Dick Gregory

At the heart of silence is prayer.
At the heart of prayer is faith.
At the heart of faith is life.
At the heart of life is service.

Mother Teresa

   
The motive, if you are to find inner peace, must be an outgoing motive.
Service, of course--service.  Giving, not getting.  Your motive must be
good if your work is to have good effect.  The secret of life is being of service.

Peace Pilgrim

  
  

Always try to serve others.  Don't even call it helping, call it service
because you are benefited by that.  If someone begs from you
and you give them something, you shouldn't think you are
helping them.  Instead, he or she is helping you.

Satchidananda

  

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life
that no person can sincerely try to help another without
helping him or herself.  Serve and you shall be served.
If you love and serve people, you cannot, by any hiding
or stratagem, escape the remuneration.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

  

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The value of all service lies in the spirit in which you
serve and not in the importance or magnitude of the service.
Even the lowliest task or deed is made holy, joyous,
and prosperous when it is filled with love.

Charles Fillmore

  
There are those who in the name of God teach that you must
deny yourself and seek only to serve others.  God’s plan is more
beautiful than that.  You were created to express the will of God.
This means that your highest dreams and aspirations are of God.
By seeking these through the ways of the Lord you automatically
do that which is best for all others.

Bruce Gilbert
  
  

One of the great underlying principles governing our life is service.
Most of us have to work, but do we serve?  Do we work
in a spirit of service?  Do we work for Life and our fellows?
Or do we merely work for self, in order to make a living?

Henry T. Hamblin

   

May no one who ever meets me
Have a meeting of little consequence.
May the simple fact of our meeting
Assist in the fulfillment of their wishes.
May I be a lamp
In the darkness of life,
A home for the homeless,
And a servant to the world.

Ancient Buddhist Blessing

    

  

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