Great quotes. Great guys. Great gals.
A selection of nice things nice people have said about service
Writing about service, humility and selflessness in an era where so much is about greed, pride and selfishness, can feel like pissing in the wind. So sometimes I come back to this list and remember what side of history I sit on.
Mahatma Gandhi: “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
Martin Luther King Jr.: “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.”
Mother Teresa: “The fruit of faith is love, and the fruit of love is service.”
Albert Schweitzer: “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
Oprah Winfrey: “The key to realising a dream is to focus not on success but on service.”
Muhammad Ali: “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”
Jesus: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”
Lao Tzu: “Serve others and cultivate yourself simultaneously. True growth comes from solving life’s problems in a way that is harmonizing to yourself and to others.”
Tim Fargo: “Leadership is service, not position.”
Muhammad: “The leader of a people is their servant.”
Chris Matakas: “Every interaction with another is an opportunity to serve. From simply letting someone into your lane in traffic, to holding a door, to a kind smile.”
William Jennings Bryan: “Service is the measure of greatness. Nearly all of our controversies grow out of trying to get something from each other—there will be peace when our aim is to do something for each other.”
Rabindranath Tagore: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
Florence Nightingale: “I have worked hard, very hard, that is all; and I have never refused God anything.”
Keir Starmer: “We don’t seek service for its own sake. We seek it to renew what this other great idea that holds this country together. Namely, whoever you are, wherever you started in life, Britain will give you a fair chance to get on.”
Keir Starmer: “Cameron talked about the Big Society. A great idea, in principle. But when austerity kicked in, we ended up with the Poor Society. Now we need a new vision for a new era. A renewed social contract. A new focus on those who build the bonds that connect us, the communities that nurture us, and the local institutions that support us. A Society of Service.”
Eric Schiffer: “When leaders reframe customers into guests, and results into experiences, profits escalate.”
Bob Dylan: “You may be an ambassador to England or France. You may like to gamble, you might like to dance. You may be the heavyweight champion of the world. You might be a socialite with a long string of pearls. But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed. You're gonna have to serve somebody.”
Hollow Horn Bear: “To be a leader, you must be willing to serve your people without thought of pay and be unafraid to deal equal justice to all.”
Hermann Hesse: “The law of service: He who wishes to live long must serve, but he who wishes to rule does not live long.”
Sheri L. Dew: “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.”
Sir Keir Starmer: “I said we would be a government of service, in the service of everybody, whether they voted for us or not.”
Daniel H. Pink: “Anytime you’re tempted to upsell someone else, stop what you’re doing and upserve instead.”
Abdul: okay, it’s from a fiction film about Queen Victoria, but it’s a great line - Abdul’s bit is cut a bit shorter than I’d like, so seek out the original to get it all
Armond: Another fictional character, and not even a quote, but boy is it a GREAT scene. From the first season of White Lotus, when Armond, his life falling apart, delivers one last run of service excellence.