Quotes about kindness

“You founded the place. Why don’t you want to go?”

“I don’t like children,” the duke replied.

“Then why put out all that money to preserve them?”

“Because it is wrong to let them die.”

Those who are humane achieve glory. Those who are inhumane suffer disgrace.

If you let people follow their feelings, they will be able to do good. This is what is meant by saying that human nature is good.

What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened.... Instead of always harping on a man's faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better self, his REAL self that can dare and do and win out!... The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town.... People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts. If a man feels kindly and obliging, his neighbors will feel that way, too, before long. But if he scolds and scowls and criticizes — his neighbors will return scowl for scowl, and add interest!... When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good — you will get that.... Tell your son Tom you KNOW he'll be glad to fill that woodbox — then watch him start, alert and interested!

The single most valuable human trait, the one quality every schoolchild and adult should be taught to nurture, is, quite simply, kindness.

Each of us is leading a difficult life, and when we meet people we are seeing only a tiny part of the thinnest veneer of their complex, troubled existences. To practice anything other than kindness towards them, to treat them in any way save generously, is to quietly deny their humanity.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones.

Deeds that seemed unimportant at the time would prove to have been momentous; a tiny act of selfishness and unkindness or, conversely, an unconsidered act of generosity would become the measure of a human life.

I tremble for our world, where, in the smallest ways, we find it impossible, as Marshall Hodgson enjoined, to find room for the other in our minds. If we cannot accommodate a viewpoint in a friend without resorting to unkindness, how can we hope to heal the terrible problems of our planet? I no longer think that any principle or opinion is worth anything if it makes you unkind or intolerant.

I was feeling pretty raw about my own species because we presume to draw a distinction between what we call good and what we call evil. We find our images of what we call evil in things outside ourselves, in creatures that know nothing of such matters, so that we can feel revolted by them, and, by contrast, good about ourselves.

I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.

It was better to be gentle and polite. It was the worst sort of selfishness to force yourself upon the world.