.... and more words of kindness...

Quotes About Kindness

“If you treat people right they will treat you right ... ninety percent of the time.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Always try to be a little kinder than is necessary.”
― J.M. Barrie

“When we treat people merely as they are, they will remain as they are. When we treat them as if they were what they should be, they will become what they should be. ”
― Thomas S. Monson, Pathways To Perfection: Discourses Of Thomas S. Monson

“Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.”
― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

    

“The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!”
― Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

    

“It is only with true love and compassion that we can begin to mend what is broken in the world. It is these two blessed things that can begin to heal all broken hearts.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

    

“Be kinder than necessary,
for everyone you meet is fighting
some kind of battle.”
― T.H. Thompson and John Watson

    

“Never start a sentence with the words 'No offense.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“If a person seems wicked, do not cast him away. Awaken him with your words, elevate him with your deeds, repay his injury with your kindness. Do not cast him away; cast away his wickedness.”
― Lao Tzu

“It's all a matter of paying attention, being awake in the present
moment, and not expecting a huge payoff. The magic in this world seems
to work in whispers and small kindnesses.”
― Charles de Lint

    

“I made the choice to be vegan because I will not eat (or wear, or use) anything that could have an emotional response to its death or captivity. I can well imagine what that must feel like for our non-human friends - the fear, the terror, the pain - and I will not cause such suffering to a fellow living being.”
― Rai Aren

“Self-talk reflects your innermost feelings.”
― Asa Don Brown

“I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness.”
― Mother Teresa

“Protect your enthusiasm from the negativity and fear of others. Never decide to do nothing just because you can only do little. Do what you can. You would be surprised at what "little" acts have done for our world.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“My son, do not forget my teaching,
But let your heart keep my commandments;
For length of days and years of life
And peace they will add to you.
Do not let kindness and truth leave you;
Bind them around your neck,
Write them on the tablet of your heart.
So you will find favor and good repute
In the sight of God and man.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight. -Proverbs 3:1-6”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version

“How would your life be different if…You pretended those around you were deaf to your words? Let today be the day…You let your actions speak and communicate your feelings and intentions.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

    

“Every single time you help somebody stand up you are helping humanity rise.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

    

“The various features and aspects of human life, such as longevity, good health, success, happiness, and so forth, which we consider desirable, are all dependent on kindness and a good heart.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

    

“You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

“If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, of self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology. ”
― Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness

    

“Nothing,' wrote Tolstoy, 'can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“Love and compassion are the mother and father of a smile. We need to create more smiles in our world today. Smiles, after all, pave the way to a happy world.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

    

“I was helpless in trying to return people's kindness, but also helpless to resist it. Kindness is a scarier force than cruelty, that's for sure. Cruelty isn't that hard to understand. I had no trouble comprehending why the phone company wanted to screw me over; they just wanted to steal some money, it was nothing personal. That's the way of the world. It made me mad, but it didn't make me feel stupid. If anything, it flattered my intelligence. Accepting all that kindness, though, made me feel stupid.

Human benevolence is totally unfair. We don't live in a kind or generous world, yet we are kind and generous. We know the universe is out to burn us, and it gets us all the way it got Renee, but we don't burn each other, not always. We are kind people in an unkind world, to paraphrase Wallace Stevens. How do you pretend you don't know about it, after you see it? How do you go back to acting like you don't need it? How do you even the score and walk off a free man? You can't. I found myself forced to let go of all sorts of independence I thought I had, independence I had spent years trying to cultivate. That world was all gone, and now I was a supplicant, dependent on the mercy of other people's psychic hearts.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love is a Mix Tape

    

“The shortest distance between two people is a smile.”
― Victor Borge

“If you can't be kind, at least be vague.”
― Judith Martin

“I must be cruel only to be kind;
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Our kindness may be the most persuasive argument for that which we believe.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley

“Give freely to the world these gifts of love and compassion. Do not concern yourself with how much you receive in return, just know in your heart it will be returned.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“May all that have life be delivered from suffering”
― Siddhārtha Gautama    

“I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.”
― Pearl S. Buck

    

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over. So in a series of acts of kindness there is, at last, one which makes the heart run over.”
― James Boswell

“When you find yourself in need of spiritual nourishment, it is in the opportunities to serve others that you will find the abundance you seek.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

    

“Be kind. Always if you have a choice, be kind.”
― Anne Rice

    

“As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.”
― Mary Anne Radmacher

“I don't want my life to be defined by what is etched on a tombstone. I want it to be defined in what is etched in the lives and hearts of those I've touched.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

    

“Christ came to be Father's compassion to the world. Be kind in your actions. Do not think that you are the only one who can do efficient work, work worth showing. This makes you harsh in your judgment of others who may not have the same talents. Do your best and trust that others do their best. And be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
― Mother Teresa, In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories and Prayers

“He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it.”
― Dante Alighieri

“There is no religion without love,
and people may talk as much as
they like about their religion, but
if it does not teach them to be good
and kind to man and beast,
it is all a sham.”
― Anna Sewell

    

“Search for contentment in each person you meet.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

    

“Kindness, I’ve discovered, is everything in life.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer

    

“Be kind to people whether they deserve your kindness or not. If your kindness reaches the deserving good for you if your kindness reaches the undeserving take joy in your compassion.”
― James Fadiman, Essential Sufism

    

“Moments of kindness and reconciliation are worth having, even if the parting has to come sooner or later.”
― Alice Munro

    

“Remember!--It is Christianity to do good always--even to those who do evil to us. It is Christianity to love our neighbours as ourself, and to do to all men as we would have them do to us. It is Christianity to be gentle, merciful and forgiving, and to keep those qualities quiet in our own hearts, and never make a boast of them or of our prayers or of our love of God, but always to show that we love Him by humbly trying to do right in everything. If we do this, and remember the life and lessons of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and try to act up to them, we may confidently hope that God will forgive us our sins and mistakes, and enable us to live and die in peace.”
― Charles Dickens

    

“Never question the power of one! Throughout history it has been the actions of only one person who has in inspired the movement of change.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

    

“Sometimes it's easy to lose faith in people. And sometimes one act of kindness is all it takes to give you hope again.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

    

“They weren't nice words he said. He could've lived a good life and died never having made a person feel rubbed down to bones and too sad to hold together. ”
― Shannon Hale, Book of a Thousand Days

    

“Nothing is so much calculated to lead people to forsake sin as to take them by the hand and to watch over them in tenderness. When persons manifest the least kindness and love to me, O what pow'r it has over my mind.”
― Joseph Smith Jr.

    

“If we have the opportunity to be generous with our hearts, ourselves, we have no idea of the depth and breadth of love's reach.”
― Margaret Cho

    

“Practice kindness - particularly when you feel irritated or things are not going well. Kindness hardly ever goes wrong.”
― Lewis Richmond, Work as a Spiritual Practice: A Practical Buddhist Approach to Inner Growth and Satisfaction on the Job