Serving Life Quotes & Sayings

I talk about myself in the third person all the time. I don't live my life in the way someone like you does. I live my life completely serving only my work and my fans. — Lady Gaga

I learned that to find meaning in life, you can't separate yourself from serving people and giving your life to them. — Felix Muruchi

You cannot serve God without serving people — Sunday Adelaja

Serve God and get grace to serve people — Sunday Adelaja

If any Englishman dedicated his life to securing the freedom of India, resisting tyranny and serving the land, I should welcome that Englishman as an Indian. — Mahatma Gandhi

He is dead and I, the self serving coward that I am, still live. Life is not fair. There is no pattern. People die at random. Something everyone knows, but no one truly believes. They think that when it comes to them there will be a lesson, a meaning, a story worth telling. That death will come to them as a dread scholar, a fell knight, a terrible emperor.
Death is a bored clerk, with too many orders to fill. There is no reckoning. No profound moment. It creeps up on us from behind, and snatches us away while we shit. — Joe Abercrombie

The Christian life begins not with high deeds and achievements but with the most simple and ordinary act of humble asking. Then the life and joy grow in us over the years through commonplace, almost boring practices. Daily obedience, reading and prayer, worship attendance, serving our brothers and sisters in Christ as well as our neighbors, depending on Jesus during times of suffering. And bit by bit our faith will grow, and the foundation of our lives will come closer to that deep river of joy. Don't — Timothy J. Keller

Waiting around to be perfect never amounts to anything. Don't be a waiter or you'll be serving other people. — Ian Desabrais

Your calling is in your difference and uniqueness — Sunday Adelaja

We the humans are too tiny to know something so grand as an Eternal Driving Force behind the Universe. Ultimately what would really matter in the development of our species as a whole is, we the humans serving humanity. — Abhijit Naskar

A rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it. — Cornel West

The church is only the church when it exists for others. To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need. The clergy must live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling. The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

You are living to the fullest when you live to discover and fulfill your purpose — Sunday Adelaja

The story of my life can be told in silver: in chocolate mills, serving spoons, and services for twelve. The story of my life has nothing to do with me. The story of my life is things. Things that aren't mine, that won't ever be mine. It's all I've ever known.
I wish it wasn't. — Elizabeth Scott

The scenes in our life resemble pictures in a rough mosaic; they are ineffective from close up, and have to be viewed from a distance if they are to seem beautiful. That is why to attain something desired is to discover how vain it is; and why, though we live all our lives in expectation of better things, we often at the same time long regretfully for what is past. The present, on the other hand, is regarded as something quite temporary and serving as the only road to our goal. That is why most men discover when they look back on their life that they have been living the whole time ad interim, and are surprised to see that which they let go by so unregarded and unenjoyed was precisely their life, was precisely that in expectation of which they lived. — Arthur Schopenhauer

God opens heavenly doors for us when we are rejected by people — Sunday Adelaja

Believe in God and rely on His directions — Sunday Adelaja

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

So much of life is just talk. At the end of the day, you're just serving the higher thing. — Shawnee Smith

All humans are important to God, so treat them all with love — Sunday Adelaja

Holiness is nothing else but the habitual and predominant devotion and dedication of soul, and body, and life, and all that we have to God; and esteeming, and loving, and serving, and seeking Him, before all the pleasures and prosperity of the flesh. — Richard Baxter

The purpose of life should be to attain happiness by serving humanity with love and utmost sincerity. — Debasish Mridha

What good is it for you to be able to discuss the Trinity with great profundity, if you lack humility, and thereby offend the Trinity? Verily, high sounding words do not make one holy and just. But a life of virtue does make one acceptable to God. Were you to memorize the entire Bible and all the sayings of the philosophers, what good would this be for you without the love of God and without grace? Vanity of vanities. All is vanity, except loving God and serving only God.49 — Justo L. Gonzalez

Time is the content of life — Sunday Adelaja

All fundamentalist theologians make the ordinances of creation an essential part of creation and absolutize them. Women belong at home, fulfil their life through motherhood, by caring for their husbands and serving them. The fixed role pattern of one particular economic and family order is transformed into an order willed by God and given by creation. With a methodologically similar logic, slaves were understood as those elected by God to serve the whites. — Dorothee Solle

A person's life is limited but serving the people is limitless. I want to devote my limited life to serving the people limitlessly. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The levelling of the European man is the great process which cannot be obstructed; it should even be accelerated. The necessity of cleaving gulfs, distance, order of rank, is therefore imperative - not the necessity of retarding this process. This homogenizing species requires justification as soon as it is attained: its justification is that it lies in serving a higher and sovereign race which stands upon the former and can raise itself this task only by doing this. Not merely a race of masters whose sole task is to rule, but a race with its own sphere of life, with an overflow of energy for beauty, bravery, culture, and manners, even for the most abstract thought; a yea-saying race that may grant itself every great luxury - strong enough to have no need of the tyranny of the virtue-imperative, rich enough to have no need of economy or pedantry; beyond good and evil; a hothouse for rare and exceptional plants. — Friedrich Nietzsche

People-based service is God-based service — Sunday Adelaja

Your calling is in what you read, think and talk about — Sunday Adelaja

If you have not been served personally by caring hands in your own life, do not be bitter, but instead, ask yourself who you can now serve. — Bryant McGill

No amount of money can compensate losing your purpose — Sunday Adelaja

Every gift you give, will multiply a hundred-fold. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Service to humanity has no alternative — Sunday Adelaja

I believe being a 'gentleman' goes well beyond holding the door for a girl and letting her go before you. It's about being vulnerable for her. I think that when it comes to the way we treat women, it's a good idea to look to the way Jesus treated women.

He laid His life down for His bride,

He sacrificed for her,

He lowered Himself for her,

He was vulnerable for her.

We must love women vulnerably in the same way that Jesus loved His bride vulnerably. Being a gentleman is far more than being caring and thoughtful, it's about possessing sacrificial and vulnerable Christ-like characteristics. I don't know if it's possible to be a gentleman without knowing and representing the character of Jesus. — Cole Ryan

When people are serving, life is no longer meaningless. — John Gardner

Employment sells out the future life — Sunday Adelaja

I find historical figures in general very tricky because you feel at times that you're serving two masters. Not only the arc and wonderful writing that comes with the show, but also the history of a person's life. — Vincent Piazza

Serving in Congress has been more than an honor; it has been one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life ... It has been a wonderful ride. It has been a wonderful journey. — J. C. Watts

We came to this world with nothing but love and blessing. The purpose of our life is to be happy by loving and serving. — Debasish Mridha

The fastest way to see God is to notice people — Sunday Adelaja

Each member of the body is immersed in Christ and carries God's presence. So I can experience the expression of the invisible God in the lives of my brothers. I can be comforted by God through a brother, and I can serve God by serving a brother. As Christ's life flows through the members of His Body, we are linked to each other not only to receive grace directly from the lord but also through the lives of other brothers with whom we cultivate relationships in Christ. — Ricardo De Paula Meneghelli

But deep down inside, I was no longer enamored with the life I'd created. The only purpose I was serving was self-interest. While I rarely showed it to outsiders, my happiness waned day after day. A restless voice kept me up at night, telling me that until I found meaning, the money wouldn't matter. — Adam Braun

Two Extremes Scripture and experience warn us that here we have to steer our course between two opposite extremes of disaster. On the one hand, there is the legalistic hypocrisy of Pharisaism (God-serving outward actions proceeding from self-serving inward motives), and on the other hand there is the antinomian idiocy that rattles on about love and liberty, forgetting that the God-given law remains the standard of the God-honoring life. Both Pharisaism and antinomianism are ruinous. — J.I. Packer

Good things come your way when you serve the people around you — Sunday Adelaja

Serving with love, a kind heart, and without expectations is happiness. — Debasish Mridha

fools continue to send fools and crooks to Washington to make stupid self-serving laws to make themselves rich, with no idea whatsoever what the word 'work' truly means, this had to happen. No, it wasn't quick but it seems so to those who had no ability to see and understand what was being done to our nation, our people and our way of life because so many could only live paycheck to paycheck. — T.J. Reeder

Meanwhile in Wichita, Kansas, Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors who performs late-term abortions - only about 1 percent of all procedures but crucial when, for instance, a fetus develops without a brain - is shot in both arms by a female picketer. He recovers and continues serving women who come to him from many states. I finally meet Dr. Tiller in 2008 at a New York gathering of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health. I ask him if he has ever helped a woman who was protesting at his clinic. He says: "Of course, I'm there to help them, not to add to their troubles. They probably already feel guilty." In 2009 Dr. Tiller is shot in the head at close range by a male activist hiding inside the Lutheran church where the Tiller family worships each Sunday. This is done in the name of being "pro-life. — Gloria Steinem

Every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral ... Every now and then I ask myself, 'What is it that I want said?' I'd like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King Jr., tried to love somebody. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The idea to use backpacks came from my visit to Sichuan after the earthquake in May 2008. During the earthquake many schools collapsed. Thousands of young students lost their lives, and you could see bags and study material everywhere. Then you realize individual life, media, and the lives of the students are serving very different purposes. The lives of the students disappeared within the state propaganda, and very soon everybody will forget everything. — Ai Weiwei

There's a time in every Christian's life that can only be described as a period of walking through a thirsty and dry desert. This is where God teaches every believer the need for faith. God has to strip away every emotion, every feeling, and every physical thing that makes you comfortable serving Him. His voice grows quiet, His Presence lonely, His ear seems deaf, and it will do either one of two things: It will either make you find a comfortable rock and wait for God to show up, or it will create such a hunger and thirst after Him, just Him, that you abandon all the "things" of Christ for Christ alone. — Alan De Jager

Losing your job brings you closer to your destiny — Sunday Adelaja

Appreciate and find ways to invest in yourself — Sunday Adelaja

The greatest joy comes from giving and serving, so replace your habit of focusing exclusively on yourself and what's in it for you. When you make the shift to supporting others in your life, without expecting anything in return, you'll think less about what you want and find comfort and joy in the act of giving and serving. — Wayne Dyer

Employment depreciates you — Sunday Adelaja

Engagement is not a matter of either speaking or doing; not a matter of either offering a compelling intellectual vision or embodying a set of alternative practices; not a matter of either merely making manifest the richness and depth of interior life or merely working to change the institutions of society; not a matter of either only displaying alternative politics as gathered in Eucharistic celebrations or merely working for change as the dispersed people of God. It is all these things and more. The whole person in all aspects of her life is engaged in fostering human flourishing and serving the common good. — Miroslav Volf

The only way to see God is to notice and observe people — Sunday Adelaja

Life cannot be in existence without time — Sunday Adelaja

Work becomes satisfaction when it is in the area of your calling — Sunday Adelaja

At its most intense, the admissions process didn't force kids to be Lisa Simpson; it turned them into Eddie Haskell. ("You look lovely in that new dress, Ms. Admissions Counselor.") It guaranteed that teenagers would pursue life with a single ulterior motive, while pretending they weren't. It coated their every undertaking in a thin lacquer of insincerity. Befriending people in hopes of a good rec letter; serving the community to advertise your big heart; studying hard just to puff up the GPA and climb the greasy poll of class rank - nothing was done for its own sake. Do good; do well; but make sure you can prove it on a college app. So — Andrew Ferguson

The Secret to saneful living is in the Key between these two worlds. In order to serve the higher ideal, one must revert to serving the Spark within all the multiplicities herein conceivable in the apparent world. The spark in itself is not contained for it encompasses both realities, that of the inner, and the apparent — AainaA-Ridtz

But to this Orc-work such a life as we lead has brought us. Lawless and fruitless all our deeds have been, serving only ourselves, and feeding hate in our hearts. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I couldn't give you a count of the number of single women I have in our congregation that are serving in very significant ways in the community. Our desire is for them to live all of life to the glory of God whether God calls them to be a wife or a mother or not. — Ligon Duncan

Never see yourself as being superior to others — Sunday Adelaja

Your prowess with a lightsaber is childish vanity. Your physical Force powers are no more than a conjurer's trick, sleight of hand to dazzle the ordinary beings you should be serving. You profane these powers by using them as weapons in war. And you fail to grasp the single, simple, uncompromising duty of the true Jedi. The Jedi is the rock-lion at the gate who says, "I will defend these beings with my life, and that is the sum of me." Etain Tur-Mukan died to save one life, a man she did not even know, but felt compelled to save, and that is what made her stronger in the Force and a truer Jedi than any of you acrobats, tricksters, and specious, empty philosophers. — Karen Traviss

You need to combine your calling with your passion — Sunday Adelaja

You cannot have a cordial relationship with God when you reject people — Sunday Adelaja

It is only when you pay attention to ordinary people that you convince God that you are really serving Him — Sunday Adelaja

Man's inner content is the worth of his life — Sunday Adelaja

Service to humanity is the key to gaining the Kingdom of God — Sunday Adelaja

Direct your attention to people; love, help and care for them — Sunday Adelaja

If we are sowing lots of thoughts about shoes, cars, clothes, computer games, shopping, guns, and very few thoughts about things of the Lord, we will not reap spiritual maturity, spiritual priorities, greater desire for the Lord, or a closer relationship with the Lord. We will reap vanity, shallowness, and even greater spiritual disinterest and distance from the Lord. If we struggle with being uninterested in the things of the Lord, we need to consider that this is something we have actually done to ourselves. If we sow a desire to charm, amuse, or impress our friends, we will not reap relationships based on a selfless, sacrificial, Christ-like interest in our friend's spiritual welfare. We will reap self-serving, exploitive relationships that can actually drag our friends down. This is a life and death matter: what you are sowing in every little conversation that you have. Are you building up, edifying your friends? — Botkin

You get answers and solutions to your problems when you begin to notice God — Sunday Adelaja

Your calling is buried in your background on earth — Sunday Adelaja

You dig deep beyond those scars and find that soft tissue again, and you massage and nurture it and bring it to life, little by little, through serving yourself well. I did it through hikes and vitamins and therapy and prayer and good friends. — Katy Perry

Life is not meaningful ... unle ss it is serving an end beyond itself; unless it is of value to someone else. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Malice or desire and intention to harm is often rooted in how we think about the persons concerned: our images of them, the inferences we habitually draw about them, and so forth. Perhaps we see them only as an obstacle to our desires, or as less than "human," as worthless. Perhaps we need to take steps toward seeing them as objects of God's love, or as beings of intrinsic value, like our own children or grandchildren or others we delight in. That will, in turn, require changes in how we think about our world and our self. All of this may be helped along by getting to know them, seeing what their life is like, or serving them. — Dallas Willard

You must be a servant if you want to be great in life — Sunday Adelaja

You disregard God when you disregard His people — Sunday Adelaja

Time is God's given asset to humans — Sunday Adelaja

Football became my obvious metaphor as it does for many, and I began to equate this as being 'halftime' in my life. As I reflected on my professional life I realized how much time I had spent trying to make first downs and score touchdowns. My focus had now changed into trying to be more about people and serving others. — Marc Trestman

It is hard to feel bad about yourself when you are doing something good for someone else. There are a lot of ways to lift your self-esteem, but making a positive difference in another's life has got to be my best leadership guidance. Serving others and working to add value to them will lift your spirits in a way that nothing else will. Trust me on this one. — John C. Maxwell

He had no longer free energy enough for spontaneous research and speculative thinking, but by the bedside of patients the direct external calls on his judgment and sympathies brought the added impulse needed to draw him out of himself. It was not simply that beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectably and unhappy men to live calmly - it was a perpetual claim on the immediate fresh application of thought, and on the consideration of another's need and trial. Many of us looking back through life would say that the kindest man we have ever known has been a medical man, or perhaps that surgeon whose fine tact, directed by deeply-informed perception, has come to us in our need with a more sublime beneficence than that of miracle-workers. Some of that twice-blessed mercy was always with Lydgate in his work at the Hospital or in private houses, serving better than any opiate to quiet and sustain him under anxieties and his sense of mental degeneracy. — George Eliot

Joblessness is a rare privilege — Sunday Adelaja

We can only hope to live a meaningful life by serving as earnest witnesses to life's tragic beauty. — Kilroy J. Oldster

We cannot see God unless we respect people — Sunday Adelaja

Martyrdom does not consist only in dying for one's faith. Martyrdom also consists in serving God with love and purity of heart every day of one's life — St. Jerome

Man is not made for the Sabbath. Rather, the Sabbath is made for man — Sunday Adelaja

Whether serving in the military, building industry, organizing politically, or making their way in any other part of American culture, the Irish were determined to create a free and prosperous life for themselves. This Irish-American struggle led to social and political progress for all Americans. — Rashers Tierney

What is done unto people is also being done unto God — Sunday Adelaja

Don't exert all your energy on employment, locate your purpose — Sunday Adelaja

Well, then I'm going to have to kick your ass. No one gets to punish you. Enough of this shit, Kyle. You're more than this. You know better than this. Yes, Mom left. But Dad stayed. I stayed. You're more than enough for us. This is our family. You don't get to throw away your life. I'm sorry, but you don't. This is self-serving bullshit. — Debra Anastasia

Reflect and meditate on yourself and discover ways to multiply yourself — Sunday Adelaja

We should travel on in the way of obedience to all God's commands, even the difficult as well as the easy; denying all our sinful inclinations and interests. The way to heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel up hill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh. We should follow Christ; the path he travelled, was the right way to heaven. We should take up our cross and follow him, in meekness and lowliness of heart, obedience and charity, diligence to do good, and patience under afflictions. The way to heaven is a heavenly life; an imitation of those who are in heaven, in their holy enjoyments, loving, adoring, serving, and praising God and the Lamb. — Jonathan Edwards

Man is the centrality of God's purpose on earth — Sunday Adelaja

Nothing is possible without time — Sunday Adelaja

You can only build yourself effectively in the area of your calling — Sunday Adelaja

Make your life a monument of visions. Serving, caring, and sharing are the passions. — Debasish Mridha

Serving and suffering are paired in the teaching and life of our Lord. One does not come without the other. And what servant is greater than The Lord? — J. Oswald Sanders

God will not come from Heaven to help us, but He'll use the people around us for that — Sunday Adelaja

Life should be an investment in yourself — Sunday Adelaja