As we move along at breakneck speed, hurrying to our jobs, attending to our children, managing our lives, it is often easy to forget about people who are not so fortunate as us.
Today, take a minute to read the inspiring stories in
this link of organizations who make it their business to help those in need. And consider the fact that Mercardi.com has a fundraising program that YOUR ORGANIZATION, family or other group could initiate to help people in need, by collecting unwanted gift cards, as simple as that. There is no cost to get this program started, and we even send you the marketing material that will help make your efforts successful, all at no cost to you.
I have always loved what Ghandi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." On that note, below are some other great quotations about how we can help each other to ponder over the weekend. Have a great one!
I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love. ~Mother Teresa
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. ~Anne Frank
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. ~William James
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. ~Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all. ~Leo Rosten
Live simply that others might simply live. ~Elizabeth Seaton
We can do no great things, only small things with great love. ~Mother Teresa
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. ~Dr. Seuss
It seems to me that any full grown, mature adult would have a desire to be responsible, to help where he can in a world that needs so very much, that threatens us so very much. ~Norman Lear
Being good is commendable, but only when it is combined with doing good is it useful. ~Author Unknown
I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world. ~Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojarhiu)
I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. ~Edward Everett Hale
It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little - do what you can. ~Sydney Smith
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little. ~Edmund Burke
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one. ~Mother Teresa
Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him. ~Albert Schweitzer
He who gives when he is asked has waited too long. ~Sunshine Magazine
This is the true joy in life - being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. ~George Bernard Shaw
Nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something. ~Author Unknown
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. ~Nelson Henderson
While earning your daily bread, be sure you share a slice with those less fortunate. ~Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
The difference between a helping hand and an outstretched palm is a twist of the wrist. ~Laurence Leamer, King of the Night
No man stands so straight as when he stoops to help a boy. ~Knights of Pythagoras (Thanks, Jim)
Charity sees the need, not the cause. ~German Proverb
In about the same degree as you are helpful, you will be happy. ~Karl Reiland
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
~William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, much later adapted to "So shines a good deed in a weary world" by David Seltzer for the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
If we could all hear one another's prayers, God might be relieved of some of his burdens. ~Ashleigh Brilliant
Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light. ~Norman B. Rice
I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. ~William Penn
Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee, and do not try to make the universe a blind alley. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own. ~Benjamin Disraeli
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. ~Winston Churchill
Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth. ~Mohammed Ali
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?" ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even. ~Daniel Berrigan
The Lord loveth a cheerful giver. He also accepteth from a grouch. ~Catherine Hall
What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal. ~Albert Pike (Thanks, Carl)
It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference. ~Tom Brokaw
God has not called us to see through each other, but to see each other through. ~Author Unknown
Do not commit the error, common among the young, of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind you have failed. ~Jan de Hartog, The Lamb's War
One must be poor to know the luxury of giving! ~George Eliot
He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help. ~Abraham Lincoln
If you have no will to change it, you have no right to criticize it. ~Author Unknown
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. ~Horace Mann
When you dig another out of their troubles, you find a place to bury your own. ~Author Unknown
The only gift is a portion of thyself. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Love the earth and sun and animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labor to others...
And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
~Walt Whitman
Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. ~John Wooden, They Call Me Coach
Trees outstrip most people in the extent and depth of their work for the public good. ~Sara Ebenreck, American Forests
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
Things of the spirit differ from things material in that the more you give the more you have. ~Christopher Morley
Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something. ~Henry David Thoreau
True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. ~Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1970
Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten. And seeing them... he cried, "Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?" God said, "I did do something. I made you." ~Author Unknown
Find a need and fill it. ~Ruth Stafford Peale
In giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands, translated from French by Stuart Gilbert
Sometimes a man imagines that he will lose himself if he gives himself, and keep himself if he hides himself. But the contrary takes place with terrible exactitude. ~Ernest Hello
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. ~Kahlil Gibran
Love never reasons but profusely gives; gives, like a thoughtless prodigal, its all, and trembles lest it has done too little. ~Hannah More
If you have much, give of your wealth; if you have little, give of your heart. ~Arabian Proverb
Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one. ~Nicholas Berdyaev
A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog. ~Jack London
If I thought I was going to die tomorrow, I should nevertheless plant a tree today. ~Stephan Girard
I've seen and met angels wearing the disguise of ordinary people living ordinary lives. ~Tracy Chapman
The vicious count their years; virtuous, their acts. ~Samuel Johnson
Look around the habitable world: how few
Know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.
~Juvenal, Satires
The deed is everything, the glory naught. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The great use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it. ~William James
I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catchers mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back. ~Maya Angelou
The race advances only by the extra achievements of the individual. You are the individual. ~Charles Towne
Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do. ~Kahlil Gibran
