Altruism

Great Quotes for Kids About Serving Others

Have you ever had someone do a favor for you without being asked? Have you ever had a friend share their most favorite or expensive toy with you? Have you ever eaten at a meal prepared by your parents relative?

If so, you know what it is like to be served. Service is the sacrifice of one’s own desires, time, and energy to benefit others. It is being selfless instead of selfish.

It is easy to allow people to serve us, because it feels good. Being served is so easy that sometimes we don’t even realize it’s happening. For example, when our parents or grandparents cook a meal for us, we are served. When a person picks up something that you’ve dropped and returns it to you, you are being served. We are served all day at school by our teachers, principals, secretaries, and many others.

In fact, you probably serve people each day as well! Have you ever done a favor for someone without being asked? Have you ever given a thing that you really like away to someone you thought needed it more? Have you ever volunteered to help someone without expecting anything in return? If so, then you know what it feels like to serve someone.

Sometimes, serving others is not easy. In today’s society, people often use the word “serving” negatively. Often, we are taught that it is more important to serve ourselves than to serve others. Many think that one must be an adult, educated, or rich to properly serve someone else.

But that is simply not true! Anyone can be of service to others at anytime. You don’t have to be a grown up, educated, or rich to serve others. You don’t have to travel great distances either. It can be as easy as raking up the leaves in your elderly neighbor’s yard, shoveling snow, or simply picking up your bedroom before your mom asks you to. Sometimes, it can feel like hard work, but every time you choose to serve someone else, you will walk away with the most amazing feeling in the world.  As Booker T. Washington once said: Those who are the happiest are those who do the most for others.”

Here are some great quotes for kids about serving others. Read them and then see below for ways you can serve others starting today!

  • “Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
  • “The best gift you could ever give someone is your time because you’re giving them something you’ll never get back.” -Anonymous
  • “Your passion becomes your legacy when you serve others, being who you are, doing what you love.” -Anonymous
  • Those who are the happiest are those who do the most for others.” -Booker T. Washington
  • “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” -John Bunyan
  • “The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.” -Albert Schweitzer
  • “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.” -Romans 12:10
  • “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” -Ghandi
  • “A life not lived for others is not a life.” -Mother Teresa
  • “People will forget what you said, people may forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” -Maya Angelou
  • “The willingness to serve makes you a better person…and the world a better place.” -Anon.
  • “To serve oneself is pleasure, to serve OTHERS is joy.” -Sri Amma Bhagavan
  • “No one has ever become poor by giving.” – Anne Frank
  • “One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others.” -Lewis Carol
  • No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” –Charles Dickens
  • “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” -Buddha
  • “The meaning of life is to find your gift.  The purpose of life is to give it away” – Pablo Picasso
  • “What I spent I had; what I saved I lost; what I gave, I have.” – German motto
  • “The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others.” – Ghandi
  • “Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world.  So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.” – Helen Keller
  • “For it is in giving that we receive.” – Francis of Assisi
  • “Think of giving not as a duty, but as a privilege.” – John D. Rockefeller
  • “You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
  • “Happiness doesn’t result from what we get, but from what we give.” – Ben Carson
  • “Never get tired of doing little things for others, sometimes those little things occupy the biggest parts of their hearts.” – Unknown
  • “No person was ever honored for what he received. He was honored for what he gave.” – Calvin Coolidge
  • “I must be willing to give whatever it takes to do good to others. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts.” – Mother Teresa
  • “You will discover that you have two hands.  One is for helping yourself and the other is for helping others.” – Audrey Hepburn
  • “Life is not about giving up or giving in. Life is about giving.” – Anthony Douglas Williams

Here is funny video that talks about the importance of serving others.

Additional Resources:

Topics for Discussion:

  • What do serving others mean to you? What are some ways you can show these things?
  • What at your top 3 quotes from the list above?   Why?
  • What people do you know who are good at serving others?  How do they do so?
  • Think about a time when someone served you. What did they do for you and how did it make you feel?
  • What are some things that you could do in your school, family or community to serve others?
  • Talk about a time when you did or did not do something for someone else that you know you should? How did it make you feel? How did it impact others?

Take Action:

Teacher Features:

  • Here is a link to a Critical Reading Skills worksheet that you can use for elementary school students.
  • Here is a link to a Critical Reading Skills worksheet that you can use for middle school students.
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