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A kind word can warm three months of winter.
-Japanese Proverb
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Sometimes you must be cruel to be kind.
-English Proverb
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Kindness is the only service that will stand the storm of life and not wash out. It will wear well and be remembered long after the prism of politeness or the complexion of courtesy has faded away. When I am gone, I hope it can be said of me that I plucked a thistle and planted a flower wherever I thought a flower would grow.
-Anon.
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Kindness begets kindness.
-Proverb
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One can pay back the loan of gold, but one lies forever in debt to those who are kind.
-Proverb
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Kind words are worth much and they cost little.
-Proverb
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There is no sickness worse for me than words that to be kind must lie.
-Aeschylus
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No Act of Kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
-Aesop
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The flower of kindness will grow. Maybe not now, but it will some day. And in kind that kindness will flow, For kindness grows in this way.
-Robert Alan
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The good deed you do today For a brother or sister in need Will come back to you some day For humanity's a circle in deed.
-Robert Alan
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It is... axiomatic that we should all think of ourselves as being more sensitive than other people because, when we are insensitive in our dealings with others, we cannot be aware of it at the time: conscious insensitivity is a self-contradiction.
-W. H. Auden
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Kindness is wisdom.
-Philip James Bailey
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Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?
Often paraphrased as: Always be a little kinder than necessary.
-James Barrie, The Little White Bird, 1902
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In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.
-Anne Baxter
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A kind and compassionate act is often its own reward.
-William John Bennett
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Compassion has no place in the natural order of the world which operates on the basis of necessity. Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural.
-John Berger
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I know the compassion of others is a relief at first. I don't despise it. But it can't quench pain, it slips through your soul as through a sieve. And when our suffering has been dragged from one pity to another, as from one mouth to another, we can no longer respect or love it.
-Georges Bernanos
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Out of compassion I destroy the darkness of their ignorance. From within them I light the lamp of wisdom and dispel all darkness from their lives.
-Bhagavad Gita
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Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians
-Bible
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Kindness is a language the dumb can speak and the deaf can hear and understand.
-Christian Nevell Bovee
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Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.
-Frederick Buechner
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How wretched is the person who hangs on by the favors of the powerful.
-Robert Burns
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The heart and benevolent and kind the most resembles God.
-Robert Burns
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Have you had a kindness shown? Pass it on; 'twas not given for thee alone, Pass it on; Let it travel down the years, Let it wipe another's tears, Till in Heaven the deed appears, Pass it on.
-Henry Burton
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The dew of compassion is a tear.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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The capacity to care is what gives life its most deepest significance.
-Pau (Pablo) Casals
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Fair and softly goes far.
-Miguel de Cervantes
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Kindness makes a fellow feel good whether it's being done to him or by him.
-Frank A. Clark
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Oh worse than everything, is kindness counterfeiting absent love.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.
-Confucius
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Is there any one maxim which ought to be acted upon throughout one's whole life? Surely the maxim of loving kindness is such: Do not unto others what you would not they should do unto you.
-Confucius
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The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.
-Norman Cousins
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Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.
-William Cowper
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How necessary it is to cultivate a spirit of joy. It is a psychological truth that the physical acts of reverence and devotion make one feel devout. The courteous gesture increases one's respect for others. To act lovingly is to begin to feel loving, and certainly to act joyfully brings joy to others which in turn makes one feel joyful. I believe we are called to the duty of delight.
-Dorothy Day
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Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.
-Barbara De Angelis
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Get it into your head once and for all, my simple and very fainthearted fellow, that what fools call humanness is nothing but a weakness born of fear and egoism; that this chimerical virtue, enslaving only weak men, is unknown to those whose character is formed by stoicism, courage, and philosophy.
-Marquis De Sade
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Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.
-Princess of Wales Diana
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The kindness and affection from the public have carried me through some of the most difficult periods, and always your love and affection have eased the journey.
-Princess of Wales Diana
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The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion; constitutionality is no match with compassion.
-Everett M. Dirksen
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You may call God love, you may call God goodness. But the best name for God is compassion.
-Meister Eckhart
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We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.
-George Eliot
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Although I may not be a lioness, I am a lion's cub, and inherit many of his qualities; and as long as the King of France treats me gently he will find me as gentle and tractable as he can desire; but if he be rough, I shall take the trouble to be just as troublesome and offensive to him as I can.
-Elizabeth I
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It is time I stepped aside for a less experienced and less able man.
-Scott Elledge
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You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning.
-Frederick W. Faber
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If you were busy being kind, Before you knew it, you would find You'd soon forget to think 'twas true That someone was unkind to you. If you were busy being glad, And cheering people who are sad, Although your heart might ache a bit, You'd soon forget to notice it.
-R. Foreman
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As perfume to the flower, so is kindness to speech.
-Katherine Francke
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He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.
-Benjamin Franklin
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Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolutions.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.
-Johann von Goethe
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When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope they'll remember and be kind to someone else. And it'll become like a wildfire.
-Whoopi Goldberg
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I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
-Stephen Grellet, widely attributed; it does not appear in any of his printed works
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When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being lovable.
-Thich Nhat Hanh
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Simple kindness to one's self and all that lives is the most powerful transformational force of all.
-David R. Hawkins
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The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favor.
-William Hazlitt
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Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.
-William Hazlitt
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It's what you do, unthinking, that makes the quick tear start; The tear may be forgotten -- but the hurt stays in the heart.
-Ella Higginson
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The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.
-Eric Hoffer
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Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
-Eric Hoffer
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Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
-Eric Hoffer
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Kindness goes a long ways lots of times when it ought to stay at home.
-Kin Hubbard
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Warm weather fosters growth: cold weather destroys it. Thus a man with an unsympathetic temperament has a scant joy: but a man with a warm and friendly heart overflowing blessings, and his beneficence will extend to posterity
-Hung Tzu-Cheng
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Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.
-Robert G. Ingersoll
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A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles.
-Washington Irving
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Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
-Henry James
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He was so benevolent, so merciful a man that, in his mistaken passion, he would have held an umbrella over a duck in a shower of rain.
-Douglas William Jerrold
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To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
-Samuel Johnson
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To act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite human beings, Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive.
-Samuel Johnson
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I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.
-Samuel Johnson
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The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.
-Samuel Johnson
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Caring is a powerful business advantage.
-Scott Johnson
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A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
-Joseph Joubert
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Kindness is loving people more than they deserve.
-Joseph Joubert
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Each small act of kindness reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of the good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it is passed, until simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.
-Dean Koontz, the character of H.R. White in From the Corner of His Eye
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There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.
-Milan Kundera
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To accept a favor is to forfeit liberty.
-Laber
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Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
-Lao-Tzu
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It is all a question of sensitiveness. Brute force and overbearing may make a terrific effect. But in the end, that which lives by delicate sensitiveness. If it were a question of brute force, not a single human baby would survive for a fortnight. It is the grass of the field, most frail of all things, that supports all life all the time. But for the green grass, no empire would rise, no man would eat bread: for grain is grass; and Hercules or Napoleon or Henry Ford would alike be denied existence.
-D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
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Compassion is no substitute for justice.
-Rush Limbaugh
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When an individual fear or apathy passes by the unfortunate, life is of no account.
-Haniel Long
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Christianity demands a level of caring that transcends human inclinations.
-Erwin W. Lutzer
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Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better.
-Niccolo Machiavelli
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Care is a state in which something does matter; it is the source of human tenderness.
-Rollo May
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We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls. We are blind to the real sights of this world; deaf to its voice; and dead to its death. And not till we know, that one grief outweighs ten thousand joys will we become what Christianity is striving to make us.
-Herman Melville
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The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another
-Thomas Merton
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Saving lives is not a top priority in the halls of power. Being compassionate and concerned about human life can cause a man to lose his job. It can cause a woman not to get the job to begin with.
-Myriam Miedzian
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Always be nice to people on the way up; because you'll meet the same people on the way down.
-Wilson Mizner
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Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.
-Mother Theresa
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If you have not often felt the joy of doing a kind act, you have neglected much, and most of all yourself.
-A. Neilen
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If someone were to pay you $.10 for every kind word you ever spoke and collect $.05 for every unkind word, would you be rich or poor?
-Nonpareil
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Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. As busy, active, relevant ministers, we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference. And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer. Those who can sit in silence with their fellowman, not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.
-Henri Nouwen
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One of the effects of a safe and civilized life is an immense oversensitiveness which makes all the primary emotions somewhat disgusting. Generosity is as painful as meanness, gratitude as hateful as ingratitude.
-George Orwell
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Minerva save us from the cloying syrup of coercive compassion!
-Camille Anna Paglia
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Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
-Blaise Pascal
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No deep and strong feeling, such as we may come across here and there in the world, is unmixed with compassion. The more we love, the more the object of our love seems to us to be a victim.
-Boris Pasternak
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I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
-William Penn
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Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
-Philo
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How frail the human heart must be --a mirrored pool of thought...
-Sylvia Plath
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To a well deserving person God will show favor. To an ill deserving person He will simply be just.
-Plautus
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A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain, while witty sayings are as easily lost as the pearls slipping from a broken string.
-George D. Prentice
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What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in a poor dumb beast. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.
-Mario Puzo
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Kindness is tenderness. Kindness is love, but perhaps greater than love. Kindness is good will. Kindness says, I want you to be happy.
-Randolph Ray
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Civility is but a desire to receive civility, and to be esteemed polite.
-Fran
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Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel in order to be tough.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.
-Theodore Rubin
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If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow man.
-Saint Francis of Assisi, (attributed)
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Be true to your teeth and they won't be false to you.
-Soupy Sales
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Kindness out of season destroys authority.
-Sandi
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Biblical orthodoxy without compassion is surely the ugliest thing in the world.
-Francis Schaeffer
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Kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
-Jacqueline Schiff
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My feeling is that there is nothing in life but refraining from hurting others, and comforting those that are sad.
-Olive Schreiner
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Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
-Albert Schweitzer
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The purpose of human life is to serve and show compassion and the will to help others.
-Albert Schweitzer
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Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.
-Albert Schweitzer
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The human spirit is not dead. It lives on in secret.....It has come to believe that compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.
-Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Peace Prize Address, The Problem of Peace in the World Today
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Wherever there is a human being there is an opportunity for kindness
-Seneca (Seneca the Elder)
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O how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes favors! There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to, that sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, more pangs and fears than wars or women have, and when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again.
-William Shakespeare
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Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.
-William Shakespeare
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Kindness gives birth to kindness.
-Sophocles
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One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession.
-Sophocles
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The value of compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater ;burden can be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or understands.
-Arthur H. Stainback
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As we mature spiritually, we exhibit a growing capacity to care for and appreciate one another in the body of Christ, regardless of our differences.
-Joseph Stowell
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Being part of an agenda beyond ourselves liberates us to complement each other rather than compete with each other.
-Joseph Stowell
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Kindness is more than deeds. It is an attitude, an expression, a look, a touch. It is anything that lifts another person.
-C. Neil Strait
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Kindness is an inner desire that makes us want to do good things even if we do not get anything in return. It is the joy of our life to do them. When we do good things from this inner desire, there is kindness in everything we think, say, want and do.
-Emanuel Swedenborg
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There are times that when truth and kindness conflict one ought to chose kindness, especially when a little honesty is better than a lot.
-Leroy Jack Syrop
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The person who receives the most favors is the one who knows how to return them.
-Publilius Syrus
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To refuse graciously is to confer a favor.
-Publilius Syrus
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When you confer a benefit on those worthy of it, you confer a favor on all.
-Publilius Syrus
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It is kindness to refuse immediately what you intend to deny.
-Publilius Syrus
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You can accomplish by kindness what you cannot by force.
-Publilius Syrus
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Loving kindness is greater than laws; and the charities of life are more than all ceremonies.
-The Talmud
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We cannot be kind to each other here for even an hour. We whisper, and hint, and chuckle and grin at our brother's shame; however you take it we men are a little breed.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
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We hate the kindness which we understand.
-Henry David Thoreau
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The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.
-Henry David Thoreau
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I loved thee beautiful and kind, And plighted an eternal vow; So altered are thy face and mind, t'were perjury to love thee now!
-Paul Tillich
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In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they show a general compassion for all the human race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to relieve the sorrows of others when they can do so without much trouble to themselves. They are not disinterested, but they are gentle.
-Alexis de Tocqueville
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Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy.
-Chogyam Trungpa
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If your words are soft and sweet, they won't be as hard to swallow if you have to eat them.
-Source Unknown
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I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer not neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
-Source Unknown
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I have wept in the night for the shortness of sight that to somebody's need made me blind; But I never have yet Felt a tinge of regret for being a little to kind
-Source Unknown
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By doing simple acts of kindness for others, we can't help but lift ourselves up, too.
-Source Unknown
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Business will continue to go where invited and remain where appreciated.
-Source Unknown
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Be the kind of person you would like to be with.
-Source Unknown
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Be kind to unkind people -- they need it the most.
-Source Unknown
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A spark of kindness starts a fire of love.
-Source Unknown
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Kindness, a language deaf people can hear and blind see
-Source Unknown
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Kindness and honesty can be expected only from the strong.
-Source Unknown
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Kindness has more power than compulsion.
-Source Unknown
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Try to become the kind of person that people are anxious to see you as, and after you leave, they will have a lot of thinking to do.
-Source Unknown
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The kindness planned for tomorrow doesn't count for today.
-Source Unknown
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The best way to knock the chip off your neighbor's shoulder is to pat him on the back.
-Source Unknown
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I don't care how much you know until I know how much you care.
-Source Unknown
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He who feels no compassion will become insane.
-Source Unknown
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It is not true that nice guys finish last. Nice guys are winners before the game ever starts.
-Addison Walker
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My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four unless there are three other people.
-Orson Welles
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Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.
-John Wesley
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So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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So many Gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
When just the art of being kind
Is all this sad world needs.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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A person who, because he has corns himself, always treads on other people's toes.
-Oscar Wilde
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I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.
-Tennessee (Thomas Lanier) Williams
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If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.
-Flip Wilson
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It's not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it's the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.
-Virginia Woolf
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The best portion of a good man's life is in his little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
-William Wordsworth
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The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person's life.
-William Wordsworth
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Little kindnesses... will broaden your heart, and slowly you will habituate yourself to helping your fellow man in many ways.
-Zadik
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The way you see people is the way you treat them.
-Zig Ziglar
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Be good, be kind, be humane, and charitable; love your fellows; console the afflicted; pardon those who have done you wrong.
-Zoroaster
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Books about Kindness
