This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"When any person of really eminent virtue becomes the object of envy, the clamor and abuse by which he is assailed is but the sign and accompaniment of his success in doing service to the public. And if he is truly a wise man, he will take no more notice of it than the moon does of the howling of the dogs. Her only answer to them is to shine on." - Richard Whately
"By the one same act man both serves and worships God, for worship regards the excellence of God, to Whom reverence is due: while service regards the subjection of man who, by his condition, is under an obligation of showing reverence to God. To these two belong all acts ascribed to religion, because, by them all, man bears witness to the Divine excellence and to his own subjection to God, either by offering something to God, or by assuming something Divine." -
"When one has this intelligent self-love is commanded to love his neighbor as himself, what else is enjoined than that he shall do all in his power to commend to him the love of God? This is the worship of God, this is true religion, this right piety, this the service due to God only." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
"True religion is not a mere doctrine, something that can be taught, but is a way of life. A life in community with God. It must be experienced to be appreciated. A life of service. A living by giving and finding one's own happiness by bringing happiness into the lives of others." - William J. H. Boetcker, fully William John Henry Boetcker
"Today education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms." - Brown v. Board of Education NULL
"The successful man doesn't use others, other people use the successful man, for above all the success is of service." - Mark Caine
"I have never known a concern to make a decided success that did not do good, honest work, and even in these days of fiercest competition, when everything would seem to be a matter of price, there lies still at the root of great business success the very much more important factor of quality. The effect of attention to quality, upon every man in the service, from the president of the concern down to the humblest laborer, cannot be overestimated." - Andrew Carnegie
"We should render a service to a friend to bind him closer to us, and to an enemy in order to make a friend of him." - Cleobulus NULL
"The great thing is the start - to see an opportunity for service, and to start doing it, even though in the beginning you serve but a single customer - and him for nothing." - Robert Collier
"Start where you are. Distant fields always look greener, but opportunity lies right where you are. Take advantage of every opportunity of service." - Robert Collier
"No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need. It performs some great service, not for itself, but for others or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist." - Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.
"Grand and manifold as were its phases, there is yet no difficulty in understanding the character of Washington. He was no Veiled Prophet. He never acted a part. Simple, natural, and unaffected, his life lies before us - a fair and open manuscript. He disdained the arts which wrap power in mystery in order to magnify it. He practiced the profound diplomacy of truthful speech - the consummate tact of direct attention. Looking ever to the All-Wise Disposer of events, he relied on that Providence which helps men by giving them high hearts and hopes to help themselves with the means which their Creator has put at their service. There was no infirmity in his conduct over which charity must fling its veil; no taint of selfishness from which purity averts her gaze; no dark recess of intrigue that must be lit up with colored panegyric; no subterranean passage to be trod in trembling, lest there be stirred the ghost of a buried crime." - John W. Daniel, fully John Warwick Daniel
"The aim of education must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals, who, however, see in the service of community their highest life problem." - Albert Einstein
"There is one wish ruling over all mankind, and it is a wish which is never in any single instance granted - each man wishes to be his own master. It is a boy's beautific vision, and it remains the grown-up man's ruling passion to the last. But the fact is, life is a service; the only question is, whom will we serve?" -
"The person who renders loyal service in a humble capacity will be chosen for higher responsibilities, just as the biblical servant who multiplied the one pound given him by his master was made rule over ten cities." - B. C. Forbes, fully Bertie Charles "B.C." Forbes
"Christianity, by making love a sin, did Love a great service." - Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault
"Serving God is doing good to man, but praying is thought as easier service and therefore more generally chosen." - Benjamin Franklin
"The ability to think straight, some knowledge of the past, some vision of the future, some skill to do useful service some urge to fit that service into the well-being of the community - these are the most vital things education must try to produce." - Virginia Gildersleeve, fully Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve
"Faith in the ability of a leader is of slight service unless it be united with faith in his justice." - George Washington Goethals
"Happiness is the legitimate fruitage of love and service. Set happiness before you as an end, no matter in what guise of wealth, or fame, or oblivion even, and you will not attain it. But renounce it and seek the pleasure of God, and that instant is the birth of your own." - Arthur Sherburne Hardy
"Our children should be fitted for bread-winning, but they should be taught that bread-winning is only a means, not the purpose in life, and that the value of life is to be judged... by the good and the service to God with which it is filled." - Samson Raphael Hirsch
"The problem of our purpose is a religious problem... Our purpose is derived from faith and is imposed onto reality by our own souls. But faith and religious truth themselves are not absolute. They are relative. Thus the answers one gives to questions about the purpose of life must necessarily be relative to a time, a place, a tradition... To know and worship God means, in Baha’ullah’s words, to promote the unity of the human race and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men”... Someday there will be a global society in which humanity will realize its spiritual and moral potential... The destiny of mankind, actually, is the ultimate creation of the world civilization. It is only in the service of such a cause that I find the meaning and purpose of life." - Firuz Kazemzadeh
"Religion is the individual's attitude toward God and man as expressed in faith, in worship, in life, and in service." - Charles Foster Kent
"What art expresses is not actual feeling, but ideas of feeling; as language does not express actual things and events but ideas of them. Art is expressive through and through - every line, every sound, every gesture; and therefore it is a hundred per cent symbolic. It is not sensuously pleasing and also symbolic; the sensuous quality is in the service of its vital import." -
"These are the times that try men's souls. The Summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its things; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial article as freedom should not be highly rated." - Thomas Paine
"Utility is the great idol of the age, to which all powers must do service and all talents swear allegiance." - Friedrich Schiller, fully Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
"The science of business is the science of service and he profits most who serves best." - Arthur Frederick Sheldon
"Like sex, knowledge is good if used in the service of life and love." - Lillian Smith, fully Lillian Eugenia Smith
"Life is a place of service, and in that service one has to suffer a great deal that is hard to bear, but more often to experience a great deal of joy. But that joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness." -
"Authority is properly the servant of justice, and political powers are arbitrary and illegitimate if not based upon qualification for that service. This is the doctrine of the ethical derivation of authority or public power, as opposed to that of an unconditioned and inherent sovereignty." - David Atwood Wasson
"Those eyes, soft and capricious as a cloudless sky, whose azure depth their color emulates, must needs be conversant with upward looks - prayer’s voiceless service." - William Wordsworth
"Pray for your enemies that everything may be well with them. More than all others prayers, this is truly the service of God." - Yehiel Mikhal of Zlotchov, also Yechiel Michel M'Drohobitch Maggid of Zlotchov
"The foundation of service is faith." - Zerahia Ha Yevani, aka Zerahiah the Greek or acronymistic nickname "Ra'ZaH" NULL
"It's said that 'power corrupts,' but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which they are insatiable, implacable." - David Brin
"The doorways to the realm of Brahma are right here on earth and they are four in number: through loving kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), sharing joy (muditha), and equanimity (upekha). It is through service in this world, not by abandoning this world that we attain to heavenly realms or spiritual fulfillment." -
"The end of all education should surely be service to others. We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about the progress and prosperity of our community. Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others for their sake and for our own." - César Chávez, fully César Estrada Chávez
"Truth needs not the service of passion; yea, nothing so deserves it, as passion when set to serve it. The Spirit of Truth is the Spirit of Meekness." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"Truth needs not the service of passion; yea, nothing so dis-serves it, as passion when set to serve it. The Spirit of Truth is the Spirit of Meekness." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"Community service is the rent that we pay for the space that we take up on earth. Too few of us are paying enough rent." - Mark Eiglarsh
"It is high time that the ideal of success should be replaced by the ideal of service." - Albert Einstein
"The essence of the Jewish concept of life seems to me to be the affirmation of life for all creatures. For the life of the individual has meaning only in the service of enhancing and ennobling the life of every living thing. Life is holy; i.e., it is the highest worth on which all other values depend." - Albert Einstein
"There is no greater satisfaction than to be used for a higher purpose. There is no richer way to live than to know you are being of service to others." - Leonard Felder
"A business devoted to service will have only one worry profits. They will be embarrassingly large." - Henry Ford