Quotes About Service

The great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote, "I slept and dreamt that life was joy. / I awoke and saw that life was service. / I acted and behold, service was joy.

When we agree to (or get tricked into) being part of something bigger than our own wired, fixated minds, we are saved. When we search for something larger than our own selves to hook into, we can come through whatever life throws at us.

I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and save the world. You sent money to the Red Cross, you registered people to vote, you marched in rallies, stood in vigils, picked up litter.

They taught me that being of service, an ally to the lonely and suffering, a big-girl helper to underdogs, was my best shot at happiness. They taught me that most of my good ideas were not helpful, and that all of my ideas after ten p.m. were especially unhelpful. They taught me to pay attention, but not so much attention to my tiny princess mind.

If you want to feel loving, I coached myself, do something loving. This is basic soul care.

Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. It means you are willing to stop being such a jerk. When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and in the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back. Most

First find a path, and a little light to see by. Then push up your sleeves and start helping.

Everyone was on God's payroll, whether they knew it or not.

I would give her the same advice God always gives me if I think to ask: Go do some anonymous things for lonely people, give a few bucks to every poor person you see, return phone calls. Get out of yourself and become a person for others, while simultaneously practicing radical self-care: maybe have a bite to eat, check in with the sky twice, buy some cute socks, take a nap.

We are going to save the world by repeatedly busting the dread that looms over us like a blimp, by pushing back our sleeves and distracting it with the next right thing and good works.

Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. It means you are willing to stop being such a jerk. When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and in the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back.

You show up as is, hangdog, skeptical, pissy, or superior. Someone welcomes you and pats the seat next to them. Someone will get other people water, or watch the kids, or do a neighbor's laundry, or wash somebody's feet.

Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. … When you are aware of all that has been given you, in your lifetime and in the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back.

Look around and see whom you can serve. This will fill you.

What has to be done can scarcely be termed heroic!" Master

what woman resents is not so much giving herself in pieces as giving herself purposelessly.

God only knows how many people, what families down the ages, have given their lives for their country. Don't try telling them now that they did it for an unworthy cause.

The greatest create of power you have on earth, whether you are an angel, a spirit, a man or woman or child is to help others.

I believe that I must do everything I can do to lessen misery. That's all I can do, and that is something enormous. It is a great power.

The greatest creative power you have on earth... is to help others. To ease pain and give joy are your finest powers. Kindness is a human miracle.

Do it for a world that will never knew you or thank you, but a world that you can now truly save.

Surely you attribute great degrees and variations to goodness. There is the goodness of the child which is innocence, and then there is the goodness of the monk who has given up everything to others and lives a life of self-deprivation and service. The goodness of saints, the goodness of good housewives. Are all these the same?

The writer has to die to give birth to the intellectual in the service of the wretched of the earth.

You can serve or you can sing, and wreck your heart in prayer, working the world's hard work.