Making A Difference Quotes

“There is nothing more beautiful than someone who goes out of their way to make life beautiful for others.”
― Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass

“...if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will be the same again.”
― Wm. Paul Young, The Shack

“I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.”
― Mary Oliver

“My son loved working in the neighborhood," One-Fifteen's father claims. "He always wanted to make a difference in the lives there."

Funny. Slave masters thought they were making a difference in black people’s lives too. Saving them from their “wild African ways.” Same shit, different century. I wish people like them would stop thinking that people like me need saving.”
― Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”
― Edward Everett Hale

“You will have to make up for the smallness of your size by your courage and selfless devotion to duty, for it is not life that matters, but the courage, fortitude and determination you bring to it.”
― Muhammad Ali Jinnah

“Love people who hate you. Pray for people who have wronged you. It won’t just change their life…it’ll change yours.”
― Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass

“Here's the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That's what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.

I want to leave a mark.

But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion.
...
We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it's silly and useless--epically useless in my current state--but I am an animal like any other.

Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either.

People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, Van Houten. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.

The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox.
...
But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar.
...
What else? She is so beautiful. You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“No matter what happens in the world, however brutal or dystopian a thing, not all is lost if there are people out there risking themselves to document it. Little sparks cause fires, too.”
― Tomasz Jedrowski, Swimming in the Dark

“But whatever you do, find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not waste your life.”
― John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life

“Mean girls go far in high school. Kind women go far in LIFE.”
― Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass

“Do Something!

I was sitting on a plane after a long, tiring business trip. I was a bit grouchy and irritable because the rigorous schedule I had made for myself left me exhausted. Looking to not talk to the person next to me and simply endure the flight, I decided to open my newspaper and read about what was happening in the world. As I continued to read, it seemed that everywhere I looked there were stories of injustice, pain, suffering, and people losing hope. Finally, fueled by my tired, irritable state, I became overcome with compassion and frustration for the way things were. I got up and went to the bathroom and broke down.
With tears streaming down my face, I helplessly looked to the sky and yelled to God.
“God, look at this mess. Look at all this pain and suffering. Look at all this killing and hate. God, how could you let this happen? Why don’t you do something?”
Just then, a quiet stillness pacified my heart. A feeling of peace I won’t ever forget engulfed my body.
And, as I looked into my own eyes in the mirror, the answer to my own question came back to me…
“Steve, stop asking God to do something. God already did something, he gave you life. Now YOU do something!”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, perhaps just one, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing.”
― John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life

“I don't believe in fate," she said at last. "But I do believe in... loopholes. I think a lot of what keeps the world going is the result of accidents — happy or otherwise — and taking advantage of these.”
― Robin McKinley, Sunshine

“You should praise, criticize and flirt with people right to their face, only then it will make a difference.”
― Amit Kalantri

“Understand and be confident that each of us can make a difference by caring and acting in small as well as big ways.”
― Marian Wright Edelman

“An act of kindness may take only a moment of our time, but when captured in the heart the memory lives forever.”
― Molly Friedenfeld, The Book of Simple Human Truths

“It's the curiosity that drives me. It's making a difference in the world that prevents me from ever giving up.”
― Deborah Meier

“Enjoy it, kid. Enjoy feeling that you can make a difference.' Floyd flashed him a smile. 'It won't last for ever.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Century Rain

“It's not about what I SEE for our future, or humanity; It's about what I DO for our future and humanity.”
― Steve Maraboli

“The abundant life begins from within and then moves outward to other individuals. If there is richness and righteousness in us, then we can make a difference in the lives of others, just as key individuals have influenced the lives of each of us for good and made us richer than we otherwise would have been.”
― Spencer W. Kimball

“...everybody wants to make a difference, but nobody is willing to be different.”
― Andy Andrews, The Little Things: Why You Really Should Sweat the Small Stuff

“One human can change the course of human history - all it takes is the right idea, at the right time, in the right place. And the right place is where you stand at present, the right time is right this very moment and the right idea is the one that defines your existence the best.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Saint of The Sapiens

“They say that it’s down to individual choice and responsibility, but reality is that you can’t personally shop your way out of climate change. If your town reuses glass bottles, that does one thing. If it recycles them, it does something else. If it landfills them, that’s something else, too. Nothing you do, personally, will affect that, unless it’s you, personally, getting together with a lot of other people and making a difference.”
― Cory Doctorow, Walkaway

“Time and time again, we've seen that one person can make a difference. There is no reason why that person can't be you.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman

“You can't make what you are not, give what you don't have, or take where you haven't been yourself”
― Dr. Lucas D. Shallua

“In the end, we have to understand that being progressive means that you are leading from the front, not pushing from the back. You cannot worry about what people say and do if you truly want to make a real impact. You may never see your impact directly, but if you fight to make it happen you will have a chance at success.”
― Daniel Pasternack, You're Not Welcome Here: Exclusionary Practices in the Game of Baseball

“Be willing to make people better than you met them. That's what transformational leaders do”
― Benjamin Suulola

“It's not what you are in life, but what you make of it”
― Ashok Ferrey, Colpetty People

“When we try to do our best, we have an opportunity not only to improve the quality of our lives but also to improve the world. Our actions have ripples beyond our ability to measure.”
― John Bruna, The Essential Guidebook to Mindfulness in Recovery: The Essence of Mindfulness