When you hear the words social worker you may already have a particular image in mind. Either one painted by what society or the film industry has portrayed, or an image from your own experience.
Let’s wipe the slate clean and learn the true definition and mission behind these everyday superheroes and celebrate them for all their hard work with these heartfelt and inspirational quotes on social workers.
In this article
Why is a Social Worker Important
A social worker is someone with a passionate desire to lift up the community and enrich people’s lives by tapping into that person’s skills and finding the best fit for them in the community or assisting a person or family in navigating through a difficult challenge in their life. All of this requires a college degree (Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, and or Doctorate), and the patients and heart to see people for who they indeed are and can be.
Social workers are important to our society because their soul purpose and mission are to fight social injustice and enhance the community’s well-being by helping those in need. If that doesn’t sound like a superhero walking straight out of a comic book and into reality, I don’t know what does!
There are over a dozen different types of social workers, just to name a few:
- Child and Family Social Worker
- School Social Worker
- Military and Veterans Social Worker
- Substance Abuse Social Worker
- Occupational Social Worker
- Trauma Social Worker
- And so many more!
Quotes for Social Work
Social workers are human too, they’d love to be seen for the incredible work they pour into the community and be recognized for the hard work they do every day. With that being said, it’s good to have a laugh or two in there as well! Here are quotes for social workers that will crack a smile, and maybe even a laugh.
- “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” -Aesop
- “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” -Angela Davis
- “Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day.” -Sally Koch
- “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
- “Neither Christ, nor Krishna, nor Superman, No imagination can rescue humanity. Each of us is the only helpline, Human salvation is human responsibility.” -Abhijit Naskar
- “Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” -Bernice Johnson Reagon
- “Too many people undervalue what they are, and overvalue what they’re not.” -Anonymous
- “You are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in.” -Eliezer Yudkowsky
- “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” -Theodore Roosevelt
- “The happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others.” -Gordon B. Hinckley
- “Men are rich only as they give. He who gives great service gets great rewards.” -Elbert Hubbard
- “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment to improve the world.” -Anne Frank
- “I may not be a superhero, but I’m a social worker so close enough.” -Anonymous
- “As we lose ourselves in the service of others, we discover our own lives and our own happiness.” -Dieter F. Uchtdorf
- “Life is not lived till it’s lived for others.” -Abhijit Naskar
- “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.” -Anonymous
- “If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.” -Bob Hope
- “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” -Dalai Lama
- “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” -Charles Dickens
- “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.” -Anonymous
- “The time is always right to do the right thing.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
- “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” -Elie Wiesel
- “There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” -John Holmes
- “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” -Mahatma Gandhi
Inspirational Quotes on Social Work
Even superheroes need a little inspiration! Give the gift of admiration with these inspirational quotes on social work, these words will spark notes of empowerment and may even tag a little on the heartstrings.
- “It is not your job to save everyone. Some people are not even ready to be helped. Focus on being of service to those who are, and be wise and humble enough to know when the best service you can offer is to guide them toward help in another direction.” -Anna Taylor
- “It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” -Napoleon Hill
- “Kindness can transform someone’s dark moment with a blaze of light. You’ll never know how much your caring matters. Make a difference for another today.” -Amy Leigh Mercree
- “At this very moment, there are individuals only you can reach, and differences only you can make in their lives.” -Mike Dooley
- “Social success is growing into a person that other people can depend on.” -Brene Brown
- “One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.” -John Fitzgerald Kennedy
- “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
- “To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.” -Pearl S. Buck
- “There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone’s life.” -Mary Rose Mcgeady
- “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” -Barack Obama
- “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.” -Anonymous
- “I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble.” -Rudyard Kipling
- “Every child deserves a champion- an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.” -Rita Pierson
- “You can have everything you want in life if you just help enough people get what they want in life.” -Zig Ziglar
- “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
- “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” -John Bunyan
- “If you’re not making someone else’s life better, then you’re wasting your time. Your life will become better by making other lives better.” -Will Smith
- “One person’s sacrifice makes millions wake up from their sleep of indifference.” -Abhijit Naskar
- “In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.” -Thurgood Marshall
- “As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands: one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” -Sam Levenson
- “We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.” -Herman Melville
- “A hand loses nothing by holding other’s hand.” -Amit Kalantri
- “I am enough of a realist to understand that I can’t reach every child, but I am more of an optimist to get up every morning and try.” -Preston Morgan
- “The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.” -William James
- “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” -Mark Twain
- “You are not here in the world for yourself. You have been sent here for others. The world is waiting for you!” -Catherine Booth
- “Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.” -Mother Teresa
- “The small charity that comes from the heart is better than the great charity that comes from the head.” -Ivan Panin
- “I always wondered why somebody doesn’t do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.” -Lily Tomlin
- “Helping others is the secret sauce to a happy life.” -Todd Stocker
Famous Social Work Quotes
There isn’t anything quite like hearing a powerful quote to move you and send you into an inspiring mindset. These famous social work quotes will do just that, so hang on tight and get ready to be uplifted!
- “To a social worker working for others is not a job, it is a joy.” -Amit Kalantri
- “When you do ‘it’ right, Social Work is a feeling that is larger than your own life.” -Ogden W. Rogers
- “Or a social worker who leaves his country, his comfort, his friends, and goes far away to help people he doesn’t know. I want to evolve into that, ultimately. I want to be that person who could sacrifice everything for others.” -Queen Rania of Jordan
- “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
- “Always have a willing hand to help someone, you might be the only one that does.” -Roy T. Bennett
- “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
- “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” -Winston Churchill
- “I fell in love with social work, and that was my undoing as a poet.” -Carl Rakosi
- “Speak up if you want to bring change to the world.” -Dr. DaShanne Spokes
- “Life’s most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” -Martin Luther King Jr.
- “A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.” -Charles H. Spurgeon
- “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope… and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” –Robert F. Kennedy
- “Being able to uplift others is the biggest miracle in the world.” -Sri Avinash Do
- “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” -Helen Keller
- “I prefer to sit on the sidewalk and share a hotdog with a homeless person than sit at a fancy restaurant and have dinner with a billionaire.” -Abhijit Naskar
- “Never underestimate your ability to make someone else’s life better—even if you never know it.” -Greg Louganis
- “The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own.” -Benjamin Disraeli
- “As helpers, we often feel the need to see our impact in tangible, measurable ways. We allow negative language into our head about the “broken system;” we look through a lens of “it doesn’t matter, I can’t make a difference”. These ideas are surely contributing to our burnout.” -Jenn Bruer
- “Every generation needs caretakers – and the caretaker of your generation is you.” -Abhijit Naskar
- “Helping others isn’t a chore; it is one of the greatest gifts there is.” -Liya Kebede
- “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
- “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” -Mother Teresa
Happy Social Work Month
Scooch over Saint Patrick’s Day! March is the official Social Work Month in the United States, and it is a time to recognize and celebrate the social workers in your community. Perhaps this will even inspire you and others to stretch this celebration outside of the month of March!
Here are a few different ways you can celebrate Social Work Month:
- If you know someone who is a social worker, send them a thoughtful card and maybe some flowers to show your admiration for them.
- Your child may attend a school that has an on-staff social worker, if so you can send or bring them a card and perhaps a personalized basket thanking them for their hard work.
- Not everyone has extra money in their monthly budget and that is more than okay, you can still celebrate by calling or messaging a social worker you may know and let them know they’re doing a great job, and or you can make a thoughtful post on social media advocating and celebrating social workers and spreading the good word about them.
However your celebration may look it’s all about wishing that hardworking social worker a Happy Social Work Month by lifting them up and acknowledging the awesome person they are, just like they do every day in the service of others in need.