National Social Work Month is in full swing. Draw professional (and personal) inspiration from these 25 quotes!

Social work takes many forms — whether you’re dedicating your days and nights to the betterment of humanity, or finding some time in your busy schedule to lend a hand, keep it up. The work is hard, but the rewards are many. Just ask these 25 inspiring figures:

 

1. I always wondered why somebody doesn’t do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.
   -Lily Tomlin
2. In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.
   -Thurgood Marshall
3. The time is always right to do the right thing.
   -Martin Luther King Jr.
4. It’s a privilege to be able to bear witness to someone’s story when they may not have had the chance to tell it before.
   -Lindy Alexander
5. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
   -Dr. Seuss, from The Lorax
6. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
   -Pema Chodron
7. To be tested is good. The challenged life may be the best therapist.
   -Gail Sheehy
8. It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that you cannot sincerely try to help another person without actually helping yourself.
   -Ralph Waldo Emerson
9. At this very moment, there are individuals only you can reach, and differences only you can make in their lives.
   -Mike Dooley
10. You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.
    -Maya Angelou
11. I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.
    -Angela Davis
12. . Don't be discouraged. It's often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock.
    -Unknown
13. You are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in.
    -Eliezer Yudkowsky
14. There are no great people in this world, only great challenges which ordinary people rise to meet.
    -William Frederick Halsey, Jr.
15. Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they're supposed to help you discover who you are.
    -Bernice Johnson Reagon
16. One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.
    -John Fitzgerald Kennedy
17. Diversity makes for a rich tapestry. We must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value, no matter their color; equal in importance no matter their texture.
    -Maya Angelou
18. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment to improve the world.
    -Anne Frank
19. There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone’s life.
    -Mary Rose McGeady
20. The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.
    -Meister Eckhart
21. Your position in life and what you do doesn't matter as much as how you do what you do.
    -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
22. Helping is self-satisfaction and not expecting anything in return, a volunteer act.
    -Babuschka Lorenz
23. If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
    -Frederick Douglass
24. I am lighthouse rather than lifeboat. I do not rescue, but instead help others to find their way to shore, guiding them by my example.
    -Modern affirmation
25. The happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others.
    -Gordon B. Hinckley