Kindness Quotations
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
- Aesop, (620 BC - 560 BC), The Lion and the Mouse
If you haven't any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.
- Bob Hope
Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.
- Jesse Jackson
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
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
- Author Unknown
Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.
- Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you - not because they are nice, but because you are.
- Author Unknown
What this world needs is a new kind of army - the army of the kind.
- Cleveland Amory
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. - Dalai Lama
I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble.
- Rudyard Kipling
There is no greater loan than a sympathetic ear. - Frank Tyger
Don't be yourself - be someone a little nicer.
- Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
Never miss an opportunity to make others happy, even if you have to leave them alone in order to do it. - Author Unknown
A fellow who does things that count, doesn't usually stop to count them.
- Variation of a saying by Albert Einstein
During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. "Absolutely," the professor said. "In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello." I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.
- Joann C. Jones
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
- Mark Twain
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.
- Seneca
A kind word is like a Spring day.
- Russian Proverb
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
- Samuel Johnson
There is one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life - reciprocity.
- Confucius
Don't wait for people to be friendly, show them how.
- Author Unknown
The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway.
- Henry Boye
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
- Abraham Joshua Heschel
Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.
- Adam Lindsay Gordon
If we should deal out justice only, in this world, who would escape? No, it is better to be generous, and in the end more profitable, for it gains gratitude for us, and love.
- Mark Twain
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.
- George Washington Carver
You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
- John Wooden
Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns.
- Author Unknown
If those who owe us nothing gave us nothing, how poor we would be.
- Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
The best portion of a good man's life - his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.
- William Wordsworth
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
- Plato
By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.
- Winston Churchill
Real generosity is doing something nice for someone who will never find out.
- Frank A. Clark
The kindest word in all the world is the unkind word, unsaid.
- Author Unknown
The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.
- Charles Kuralt
We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
- Epictetus
One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind.
- Malayan Proverb
Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree.
- Marian Wright Edelman
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
- Leo Buscaglia
A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses.
- Chinese Proverb
As the bus slowed down at the crowded bus stop, the Pakistani bus conductor leaned from the platform and called out, "Six only!" The bus stopped. He counted on six passengers, rang the bell, and then, as the bus moved off, called to those left behind: "So sorry, plenty of room in my heart - but the bus is full." He left behind a row of smiling faces. It's not what you do, it's the way that you do it.
- The Friendship Book of Francis Gay, 1977
There is no effect more disproportionate to its cause than the happiness bestowed by a small compliment.
- Robert Brault
Make it a practice to judge persons and things in the most favorable light at all times and under all circumstances.
- Saint Vincent de Paul
Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something.
- H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Kindness is the greatest wisdom.
- Author Unknown
The best way to knock the chip off your neighbor's shoulder is to pat him on the back.
- Author Unknown
If every man's internal care
Were written on his brow,
How many would our pity share
Who raise our envy now?
- Peitro Metastasio
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.
- Og Mandino
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,
'Til in Heaven the deed appears -
Pass it on.
- Henry Burton, Pass It On
Open your heart - open it wide; someone is standing outside.
- Quoted in Believe: A Christmas Treasury by Mary Engelbrei
A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.
- Dave Barry, Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn
If thou are a master, be sometimes blind; if a servant, sometimes deaf.
- Thomas Fuller
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
- Alexander Pope, Epilogue to the Satires, 1738
Life is short but there is always time for courtesy.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Social Aims
The best practical advice I can give to the present generation is to practice the virtue which the Christians call love.
- Bertrand Russell
If we cannot be clever, we can always be kind. - Alfred Fripp
To give and then not feel that one has given is the very best of all ways of giving.
- Max Beerbohm
One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
- Booker T. Washington
The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.
- John E. Southard
Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
- Samuel Johnson
The first and highest law must be the love of man to man. Homo homini Deus est - this is the supreme practical maxim, this is the turning point of the world's History.
- Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity
Love someone who doesn't deserve it.
- Author Unknown
The more sympathy you give, the less you need.
- Malcolm S. Forbes
It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.
- Baha'u'llah
There are no traffic jams when you go the extra mile.
- Attributed to both Zig Ziglar and Dr. Kenneth McFarland
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson
If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.
- H.L. Mencken
To err on the side of kindness is seldom an error.
- Liz Armbruster
Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.
- James Matthew Barrie
In about the same degree as you are helpful, you will be happy. - Karl Reiland
Real charity doesn't care if it's tax-deductible or not.
- Dan Bennett
Sometimes someone says something really small, and it just fits right into this empty place in your heart.
- From the television show My So-Called Life
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
- William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice
I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.
- William Penn
The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.
- Benjamin Disraeli
How beautiful a day can be
When kindness touches it!
- George Elliston
Something that has always puzzled me all my life is why, when I am in special need of help, the good deed is usually done by somebody on whom I have no claim.
- William Feather
When your suffering is a little greater than my suffering
I feel that I am a little cruel.
- Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.
- Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
- William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)
The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible.
- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
There are no thanks for a kindness, which has been delayed.
- Anonymous
Compassion is the basis of all morality.
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
There is no duty more obligatory than the repayment of kindness.
- Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)
Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.
- Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.
- Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC), The Confucian Analects
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.
- Ettiene De Grellet
Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.
- George Sand (1804 - 1876)
Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else's life forever.
- Margaret Cho, weblog, 03-11-04
I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
- Tennessee Williams (1911 - 1983), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
If you step on people in this life, you're going to come back as a cockroach.
- Willie Davis
Always be a little kinder than necessary.
- James M. Barrie
Adapted from materials retrieved from http://www.quotegarden.com/kindness.html, http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/kindness/ and elsewhere.