Quotes & Sayings About Helping Others Before Yourself

After praying, and before eating anything, it is a good custom for everyone to feed one another a small portion of the food. This will help to cultivate mutual love and affection among the family members. — Mata Amritanandamayi

But before and after the Mongol upheaval, the Khazars sent many offshoots into the unsubdued Slavonic lands, helping ultimately to build up the great Jewish centers of eastern Europe. — Salo Wittmayer Baron

Someone once told me his idea for surviving a crash of civilization was to be a lone wolf, heading for the hills, with his rifle and knife, living off the land. "Nowadays, I'm more interested in staying behind and helping others," he said, "like after Hurricane Katrina. Coming together and rebuilding something that can last."

"How about BEFORE a disaster?" I asked.

"Even better. — Michael Carter

My son." Hades tone was almost gentle. "Whatever happens, you have earned my respect. You brought honor to our house when we stood together against Kronos in Manhattan. You risked my wrath to help the Jackson boy, helping him to the River Styx, freeing him from my prison, pleading with me to raise the armies of Erebos to assist him. Never before have I been so harassed by one of my sons. Percy this and Percy that. I nearly blasted you to cinders. — Rick Riordan

He wriggled his fingers in a come-closer gesture. Cinderella minced over to him. "What," she started, "do you want - put me down!" He'd picked her up by her waist. "What are you doing?" she hissed as Colonel Friedrich climbed the crate. "Helping you break the law. Can you reach the ledge?" Held higher, the ledge was shoulder-height. "Yes," Cinderella said, scrambling to grasp the ledge. She set her feet against the exterior wall and tried to climb in. She shrieked when he pushed against her backside - boosting her up. He'd actually touched her posterior! "Sir! This is highly improper!" Colonel Friedrich chuckled. Cinderella purposely booted him in the neck before she squirmed through the window, falling inside. — K.M. Shea

I know you don't like the traffic here. I'm sorry that you're burdened with this."
I muttered, "Not liking the traffic is an understatement. People don't know how to drive here. They're crazy."
"We can take back roads with the least traffic on the way, and we'll be driving only to the outskirts of Mumbai, not through the city as before. It shouldn't be too bad. You're a good driver."
"Ha, easy for you to say. You'll just sleep in the back the whole way."
Ren touched my cheek with his fingers and gently turned my face to his. "Rajkumari, I want to say thank you. Thank you for staying and helping me. You don't know what this means to me."
I mumbled, "You're welcome. And rajkumari means?"
He flashed me a brilliant white smile and deftly changed the subject. — Colleen Houck

There was nothing like an extra helping of guilt to cool a man's blood.And it was guilt as much as the hot food and the glass of good wine that got Brian through the evening in the Grant kitchen. The size of it left little room for lust, considering.
There was Adelia Grant giving him a warm greeting as if he was welcome to swing in for dinner anytime he had the whim, and Travis getting out an extra plate himself-as if he waited on employees five days a week-and saying that there was plenty to go around as Brendon had other plans for dinner.
Before he knew it, he was sitting down, having food heaped in front of him and being asked how his day had been.And not in a way that expected a report.
He didn't know what to do about it. He liked these people, genuinely liked them. And there he was lusting after their daughter. An alley mutt after a registered purebred. — Nora Roberts

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. — Eugene H. Peterson

[...] if truth be told, evolution hasn't yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn't evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of 'like begets like'. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.
[review of The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life, Nature 442, 983-984 (31 August 2006)] — Jerry A. Coyne

Helplessness is a place of power if you're helpless before God. Ask God for help in everything you do. — Joyce Meyer

You must understand the troubles of that man farthest down before you can help him. — Booker T. Washington

For as long as I can remember, I have loved snow and ice. As a result, I have spent most of my life exploring the Arctic region. These journeys have brought such joy and beauty to my life that I have dedicated myself to helping preserve these wonderful frozen places. More than ever before, I am driven to share my passion for the Arctic, a region whose health and stability have far-reaching consequences for us all. — Lonnie Dupre

It is our earth, not yours or mine or his. We are meant to live on it, helping each other, not destroying each other. This is not some romantic nonsense but the actual fact. But man has divided the earth, hoping thereby that in the particular he is going to find happiness, security, a sense of abiding comfort. Until a radical change takes place and we wipe out all nationalities, all ideologies, all religious divisions, and establish a global relationship - psychologically first, inwardly before organizing the outer - we shall go on with wars. If you harm others, if you kill others, whether in anger or by organized murder which is called war, you, who are the rest of humanity, not a separate human being fighting the rest of mankind, are destroying yourself. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

There's a fine line between helping others and being a people pleaser, and mistaking one for the other can be hugely detrimental. When we put others' needs before our own, we deplete our energy, which can lead to depression, physical illness, and overwhelm. — Gabrielle Bernstein

Novak! Take the blazer off before you punch, it will help. Take it off. Hey, that's from Express. — Dolph Ziggler

I just haven't really had a chance to allow to sink in. I'm sure there is going to come a time when reality is going to hit me and I'm going to know that it's going to be a while before I help my teammates, and that's going to be hard for me. — Gabe Kapler

Brook, you don't sound like yourself."

My reply came out of my mouth before I could choose it. "I am not the person I was three weeks ago and I will never be that person again."

Surprised by my own response, I relayed it to my therapist who was helping me work through issues surrounding my brother's death. "Of course you're not," she said. "And one of the best things you can do for yourself is to know that you are a different person now. — Brook Noel

Before you can give anyone a hand up, first you must get yourself up there to do so ... — Stephen Richards

I'm sorry. I can't do this. I thought I could but I can't. My favorite professor at the university said he gets his piece of therapeutic information every time he boards an airplane. The flight attendant says if the oxygen mask drops down, be sure to put on your own before helping anyone with theirs. I'm afraid I haven't put mine on. — Chris Crutcher

The question before the advanced nations is not whether they can afford to help the developing nations, but whether they can afford not to do so. — Indira Gandhi

I am, when you stop to think of it, a member of a fairly select group: the final handful of American novelists who learned to read and write before they learned to eat a daily helping of video bullshit. — Stephen King

You, being yourself, help others be themselves. Because you recognize your own uniqueness you will not need to dominate others, nor cringe before them. — Jane Roberts

Ask someone about their day before you ask yourself how you're going to get through yours. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Lord, I don't want to entertain sin in my heart. I want my heart to be right before You so that You will always hear my prayers. I know I don't do everything perfectly, so I ask that by the power of Your Holy Spirit You will enable me to keep my heart pure and my hands clean. Thank You for loving me and helping me do what is right in Your sight. — Stormie O'martian

She soon called a halt to the work. Judy's great success was that she stopped her helpers before they got tired. — Maeve Binchy

People have to want to change before there's any chance of helping them do so. — Jakob Nielsen

I have a great set of executive producers helping me out. I have a great cast and crew. AMC has been fantastic. I'd say it's everything I was doing before, just eighteen other jobs. I love it. — Scott M. Gimple

When I was starting out, I didn't know what the hell I was doing and my person who was helping me out, I didn't even have an agent, got me five or six big auditions for leads in movies in 1986 that I had no business auditioning for. I think I ran out of three of them before I'd even finished. — John Corbett

Before World War I, self-improvement meant being less self-involved, less vain: helping others, focusing on schoolwork, becoming better read, and cultivating empathy. Author — Peggy Orenstein

It will greatly help you to understand scripture if you note - no only what is spoken and written, but of whom and to whom, with what words, at what time, where, to what intent, with what circumstances, considering what goes before and what follows. — Myles Coverdale

Anne had no sooner uttered the phrase, "home o'dreams," than it captivated her fancy and she immediately began the erection of one of her own. It was, of course, tenanted by an ideal master, dark, proud, and melancholy; but oddly enough, Gilbert Blythe persisted in hanging about too, helping her arrange pictures, lay out gardens, and accomplish sundry other tasks which a proud and melancholy hero evidently considered beneath his dignity. Anne tried to banish Gilbert's image from her castle in Spain but, somehow, he went on being there, so Anne, being in a hurry, gave up the attempt and pursued her aerial architecture with such success that her "home o'dreams" was built and furnished before Diana spoke again. — L.M. Montgomery

But good writers have a reason for doing things the way they do them, and if you tinker with their work, taking it upon yourself to neutralize a slightly eccentric usage or zap a comma or sharpen the emphasis of something that the writer was deliberately keeping obscure, you are not helping. In my experience, the really great writers enjoy the editorial process. They weigh queries, and they accept or reject them for good reasons. They are not defensive. The whole point of having things read before publication is to test their effect on a general reader. You want to make sure when you go out there that the tag on the back of your collar isn't poking up - unless, of course, you are deliberately wearing your clothes inside out. — Mary Norris

Tamani has generously agreed to donate his body to my research."
The words were out of Laurel's mouth before she realized how bad they sounded.
"I mean he's helping me. — Aprilynne Pike

Never before had I believed or suspected that I had a soul but just then I knew I had. I knew also that my soul was friendly, was my senior in years and was solely concerned for my own welfare. For convenience I called him Joe. I felt a little reassured to know that I was not altogether alone. Joe was helping me. — Flann O'Brien

I've always been business-minded. I worked in corporate America before becoming an actress and knew that acting wasn't the end but a means to an end. It gave me the platform and the exposure I needed to do my philanthropic work. It also gave me the financial security to focus on my other businesses, start new businesses, and even help other people start businesses. — Eva Longoria

People rely on intelligence to solve problems, and they are naturally baffled when comprehension proves impotent to effect emotional change. To the neocortical brain, rich in the power of abstractions, understanding makes all the difference, but it doesn't count for much in the neural systems that evolved before understanding existed. Ideas bounce like so many peas off the sturdy incomprehension of the limbic and reptilian brains. The dogged implicitness of emotional knowledge, its relentless unreasoning force, prevents logic from granting salvation just as it precludes self-help books from helping. The sheer volume and variety of self-help paraphernalia testify at once to the vastness of the appetite they address and their inability to satisfy it. (118) — Thomas Lewis

Before the 1970s, banks were banks. They did what banks were supposed to do in a state capitalist economy: they took unused funds from your bank account, for example, and transferred them to some potentially useful purpose like helping a family buy a home or send a kid to college. — Noam Chomsky

Before that I had largely thought of selling as just a way of making a living for myself. I had dreaded to go in to see people, for fear I was making a nuisance of myself. But now I was inspired! I resolved right then to dedicate the rest of my selling career to this principle: finding out what people want, and helping them get it. — Frank Bettger