kindness Quotes

“Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.”

“Don’t wait until people are dead to give them flowers.”

“I like how Mother Teresa put it: ‘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.’ If you approach life this way, always looking for ways to build instead of to tear down, you’ll be amazed at how much happiness you can give to others and find for yourself.”

“how is it so easy for you to be kind to people he asked milk and honey dripped from my lips as i answered cause people have not been kind to me”

“Jamie helped everyone—she was one of those equal opportunity saints.”

“Let’s never try to get even with our enemies, because if we do we will hurt ourselves far more than we hurt them. Let’s do as General Eisenhower does: let’s never waste a minute thinking about people we don’t like.”

“A good deed, “said the prophet Mohammed, ‘is one that brings a smile of joy to the face of another.’ Why will doing a good deed every day produce such astounding efforts on the doer? Because trying to please others will cause us to stop thinking of ourselves: the very thing that produces worry and fear and melancholia.”

“The kindest words my father said to me Women like you drown oceans.”

“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.”

“Early in the morning, a peasant, who was passing by, saw what had happened. He broke the ice in pieces with his wooden shoe, and carried the duckling home to his wife.”

“He took the Velveteen Rabbit with him, and before he wandered off to pick flowers, or play at brigands among the trees, he always made the Rabbit a little nest somewhere among the bracken, where he would be quite cosy, for he was a kind-hearted little boy and he liked Bunny to be comfortable.”

“She had gone away with the Tucks because—well, she just wanted to. The Tucks had been very kind to her, had given her flapjacks, taken her fishing. The Tucks were good and gentle people.”

“People are hard to hate close-up. Move in. Speak truth to bullshit. Be civil. Hold hands. With strangers. Strong back, soft front, wild heart.”

“Half my roll disappeared in one bite. It was the first decent food I’d had since Jenny’s kitchen. Curzon watched me without saying a word. When I licked the butter off my fingers, he gave me his roll.”

″‘Then be off home as quick as you can,’ said the Faun, ‘and – c-can you ever forgive me for what I meant to do?’ ‘Why, of course I can,’ said Lucy, shaking him heartily by the hand. ‘And I do hope you won’t get into dreadful trouble on my account.‘”

“Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses... swapped back and forth and over again.”

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

“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.”

“When I went into their family, it was the abode of happiness and contentment. The mistress of the house was a model of affection and tenderness. Her fervent piety and watchful uprightness made it impossible to see her without thinking and feeling—“that woman is a Christian.”

“I said, ‘I’d trade you in a minute. The worst thing that’s going to happen to you is that they’re going to make you play house a lot … I tickled Jerry under his chin and said, “Ga-ga, goo-goo, baby-waby.’ Jerry couldn’t help but smile. I said, ‘You’re going to be great.’ Jerry looked like he wasn’t so scared anymore so I went over to my bed and started getting ready.”

“Denver looked up at her. She did not know it then, but it was the word ‘baby’, said softly with such kindness, that inaugurated her life in the world as a woman”

“Of course they needed to care. It was the meaning of everything.”

“Sometimes, when people get treated as less than human, the best way to help them feel better is to simply treat them as human. Not as victims. Just you as you.”

“Perhaps the most ‘spiritual’ thing any of us can do is simply to look through our own eyes, see with eyes of wholeness, and act with integrity and kindness.”

“‘Nothing,’ wrote Tolstoy, ‘can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.‘”

“Of him also I learned how to receive favours and kindnesses (as commonly they are accounted:) from friends, so that I might not become obnoxious unto them, for them, nor more yielding upon occasion, than in right I ought; and yet so that I should not pass them neither, as an unsensible and unthankful man.”

General benevolence, but not general friendship, make a man what he ought to be.

“Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.”

“As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.”

“Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won’t all be poor.”

“Howl was equally patient and polite with customers from Porthaven, but, as Michael anxiously pointed out, the trouble was that Howl did not charge these people enough. This was after Howl had listened for an hour to the reasons why a seaman’s wife could not pay him a penny yet, and then promised a sea captain a wind spell for almost nothing. Howl eluded Michael’s arguments by giving him a magic lesson.”

“Mr. Scrooge!” said Bob; “I’ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!” “The Founder of the Feast indeed!” cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. “I wish I had him here. I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a good appetite for it.”

“So often, either consciously or unconsciously, we want something from others, especially when we have done something for them – It’s almost as though we keep score of our own good deeds rather than remembering that giving is its own reward.”

“Rufus had caused her trouble, and now he had been rewarded for it. It made no sense. No matter how kindly he treated her now that he had destroyed her, it made no sense.”

I couldn’t believe it. Among other things, the Herdmans were famous for never sitting still and never paying attention to anyone—teachers, parents (their own or anybody else’s), the truant officer, the police—yet here they were, eyes glued on my mother and taking in every word. ‘What’s that?’ they would yell whenever they didn’t understand the language, and when Mother read about there being no room at the inn, Imogene’s jaw dropped and she sat up in her seat. ‘My God!’ she said. ‘Not even for Jesus?’”

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

“And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say That the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day!”

“He brought back their snoof and their tringlers and fuzzles, Brought back their pantookas, their dafflers and wuzzles.”

“Christmas Day is in our grasp So long as we have hands to grasp.”

“Welcome Christmas while we stand Heart to heart and hand in hand.”

“He brought everything back, all the food for the feast! And he, he himself, the Grinch carved the roast beast!”

“He rode into Whoville. He brought back their toys. He brought back their floof to the Who girls and boys.”

“I shall miss you very much, James, but we shall pull through, and there’s nothing like doing a kindness when ‘tis put in your way, and I am glad I can do it.”

A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others.

“She waved at all the people on the train & later, when she saw they didn’t wave back, she started singing songs to herself & it went that way the whole day & she couldn’t remember having a better time in her life.”

“This is a way to kill a wife with kindness, And thus I’ll curb her mad and headstrong humour. He that knows better how to tame a shrew, Now let him speak. ‘Tis charity to show.”

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.”

“Nobody’s ever asked me to a party before, as a friend!”

“I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.”

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”

“Kana stopped one afternoon to watch Mafatu at work on his nets. Of all the youths of his own age, Kana alone had been friendly.”

“The greatest cause in the world is joyfully rescuing people from hell, meeting their earthly needs, making them glad in God, and doing it with a kind, serious pleasure that makes Christ look like the Treasure he is.”

“Learning softeneth the heart and breedeth gentleness and charity.”

“I don’t deserve anything. You stand for what is right, Lina, without the expectation of gratitude or reward.”

“A girl smiled at me today, another gave me directions, still another boy whispered the page I should turn to in our textbook. This is going to work. It will take a lot more patience and more strength from me, but it’s going to work.”

“Kinder than is necessary. Because it’s not enough to be kind. One should be kinder than needed. Why I love that line, that concept, is that it reminds me that we carry with us, as human beings, not just the capacity to be kind, but the very choice of kindness.”

“Courage. Kindness. Friendship. Character. These are the qualities that define us as human beings, and propel us, on occasion, to greatness.”

“When given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind.”

“Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.”

“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 kindnesses there is at least one which makes the heart run over.”

“Perhaps it was all my years as a big sister, but I just had to keep these girls safe.”

“‘But please, please—won’t you—can’t you give me something that will cure Mother?’ Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself. ‘My son, my son,’ said Aslan. ‘I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another.‘”

“Things that cause friendship are: doing kindnesses; doing them unasked; and not proclaiming the fact when they are done, which shows that they were done for our own sake and not for some other reason.”

“Only the brave and the broken are kind in this world.”

“Hillari Kimble walked up to Stargirl and said, ‘You ruin everything.’ And she slapped her. The crowd grew instantly still. The two girls stood facing each other for a long minute. Those nearby saw in Hillari’s shoulders and eyes a flinching: she was waiting to be struck in reply. And in fact, when Stargirl finally moved, Hillari winced and shut her eyes. But it was lips that touched her, not the palm of a hand. Stargirl kissed her gently on the cheek. She was gone by the time Hillari opened her eyes.”

″‘I saw the way you shoved him into the ditch. You could have really hurt him. Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?’ the boy replied calmly, not the least intimidated by Bernard.”

“It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers.”

“You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love.”

“We are not here to fix, change or belittle another person. We are here to support, forgive and heal one another.”

“When I find myself filling with rage over the loss of a beloved, I try as soon as possible to remember that my concerns and questions should be focused on what I learned or what I have yet to learn from my departed love. What legacy was left which can help me in the art of living a good life? Did I learn to be kinder, To be more patient, And more generous, More loving, More ready to laugh, And more easy to accept honest tears? If I accept those legacies of my departed beloveds, I am able to say, Thank You to them for their love and Thank You to God for their lives.”

“That day, I learned that I could be a giver by simply bringing a smile to another person. The ensuing years have taught me that a kind word, a vote of support is a charitable gift. I can move over and make another place for someone. I can turn my music up if it pleases, or down if it is annoying. I may never be known as a philanthropist, but I certainly am a lover of mankind, and I will give freely of my resources.”

″Not causing harm obviously includes not killing or robbing or lying to people. It also includes not being aggressive - not being aggressive with our actions, our speech, or our minds. Learning not to cause harm to ourselves or others is a basic Buddhist teaching on the healing power of nonaggression.″

“Atticus, he was real nice...” His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me. “Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.”

“Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn’t know it when he put the blanket around you.”

“Just because an animal is large, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want kindness; however big Tigger seems to be, remember that he wants as much kindness as Roo.”

“By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”

“Do the wise thing and the kind thing too, and make the best of us and not the worst.”

“Just always be waiting for me.”

“He wept because he was afraid now that he could not save Gabriel. He no longer cared about himself”

“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”

“All I’m saying is, kindness don’t have no boundaries.”

“Many times, on the way home, women with nothing but kids and poverty would come running out and plead with him to paint their blinds. ‘Frau Hallah, I’m sorry, I have no black paint left,’ he would say, but a little farther down the road, he would always break. . . . ‘Tomorrow,’ he’d promise, ‘first thing,’ and when the next morning dawned, there he was, painting those blinds for nothing or for a cookie or a warm cup of tea.”

“And what is a man that he should not run with his brothers? I was born in the jungle; I have obeyed the Law of the Jungle; and there is no wolf of ours from whose paws I have not pulled a thorn. Surely they are my brothers!”

Sometimes you simply needed someone kind to sit with you while you dealt with things.

“I could tolerate any form of cruelty better than kindness. Praise was a poison to me; I choked on it.”

“Guy don’t need no sense to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus’ works the other way around. Take a real smart guy and he ain’t hardly ever a nice fella.”

“Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other.”

“He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk—that anything—could give him so much happiness.”

“Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.”

“Perhaps to be able to learn things quickly isn’t everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people … Lots of clever people have done harm and have been wicked.”

“If nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that — warm things, kind things, sweet things–help and comfort and laughter — and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.”

“There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the desolate and the distressed.”

“His life was gentle; and the elements So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, ‘This was a man!‘”

“O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!”

″‘Well,’ said I, ‘let the little orphan be yours. You bravely and kindly exerted yourself to save the mother’s life; now you must train her child carefully, for unless you do so its natural instinct will prove mischievous instead of useful to us.‘”

“By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness; and in this we may be right. And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness—the desire to see others than the self happy; not happy in this way or in that, but just happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, ‘What does it matter so long as they are contented?’ We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven—a senile benevolence who, as they say, ‘liked to see young people enjoying themselves’ and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, ‘a good time was had by all’.”

“Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering.”

“We are gentle and we are severe with one another, for we know both God’s kindness and God’s severity.”

“One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls.”

“Your heart is bigger than you think.”

“It was on reputedly disreputable Beale Street in Memphis that I had met the warmest, friendliest person I had ever known, that I discovered that all human beings were not mean.”

“Can you imagine how far they have come?”

“I always consider myself personally one of seven billion human beings. Nothing special. So, on that level, I have tried to make people aware that the ultimate source of happiness is simply a healthy body and a warm heart.”

“Dee Dee ordered another round of drinks. ‘Why can’t you be decent to people?’ she asked. ‘Fear,’ I said.”

“I cannot sit down without saying how very grateful I am for the kindness and patience with which the House has heard me, and which have been extended to me...”

“Kindness connects to who you are, while niceness connects to how you want to be seen.”

″ I thought I could. I thought I could. I though I could. ”

“Matthias, don’t be ashamed, I know why you cry and grieve. It is because you are kind and good not a hardhearted pitiless rat like Cluny.”

“But when the angry bear saw how polite Papa was, he remembered his manners too.”

This story also has one of the most beautiful messages - how kindness can be life changing and how being kind can give a life purpose.

“I’ll make you my papa’s special seaweed sandwich. He was a captain, too.”

“The soul grows into lovely habits as easily as into ugly ones, and the moment a life begins to blossom into beautiful words and deeds, that moment a new standard of conduct is established, and your eager neighbors look to you for a continuous manifestation of the good cheer, the sympathy, the ready wit, the comradeship, or the inspiration, you once showed yourself capable of. Bear figs for a season or two, and the world outside the orchard is very unwilling you should bear thistles.”

“If she hadn’t thrown her slipper at the right time, if she hadn’t outfitted me with the pensioned colonel’s sword, I’d be lying in my grave, bitten to pieces by the abominable King of Mice. Tell me now, can Pirlipat, though a true princess, hold a candle to Mistress Stahlbaum for beauty, kindness, and virtue? No, I say, she cannot!”

“She could have done it herself- maybe it didn’t need to be done at all- but Gracey knew I wanted to handle the shoes, to see how light they were, to test how sharp the spikes were. Gracey’s good to me.”

“Lyle was always one for sharing.”

“Becky was pushing the wheelchair and Nelita and Lana were holding his hands- lucky guy! They were whirling him in big circles across the floor, swooping him in and out among the other kids...”

“Esperanza thought about the class play later that afternoon and wondered what it would be like in the spotlight. ‘To put my heart into everything I do,’ she answered.”

“She’s all alone. I think she’s hungry.′ Esperanza reached for her lunch bag, pinched off a piece of chicken, and offered it to the kitty who gobbled it up.”

“When Esperanza finds a heart-shaped rock, she sees it as a reminder to spread kindness and love in the world. ”

“Renaming my brother was perhaps the kindest thing I ever did for him, because nobody expects much from someone called Doodle.”

“It was the first kind word he had had since the morning, and after his troubles kindness melted him.”

“I remember alike those who sought my life with stones and those who gave me food- lay aside therefore your fears. I return as an enemy only to those who injured me.”

“The first thing was their kindness. How amazingly widespread it was. They had taken responsibility for her, nursed and clothed her. Someone had given up her bed, probably Beatie; no one had complained when she was snappish and rude about Dovey’s best clothes, about the lack of sanitation; no one had condemned her unsympathetic attitude towards Gibbie.”

“So once the grid went up, the realization that there was now only the glass between me and the sidewalk, that I was free to see, close up and whole, so many things I’d seen before only as corners and edges, made me so excited that for a moment I nearly forgot about the Sun and his kindness to us.”

“That’s who we are as human beings. For the most part, we are kind.”

Lovely story of kindness and consideration trumping bullying and intimidation. Although clearly written in another age it is timeless, without being patronising, suitable for all children.

″ ‘Because everyone talks about how kind you are, and they praise everything you do,’ Manyara replied. ‘I’m certain that Father loves you best. But when I am queen, everyone will know that our silly kindness is only weakness.’ ”

“Hallo, Donovan; my name’s Mrs. Chapman. You’re coming to stay with me for a little while, until your mother comes back from Jamaica. Everything is going to be all right.”

“Every truth is a kindness, even if it makes others uncomfortable. Every untruth is an unkindness, even if it makes others comfortable.”

“The kindness in his smile seemed infinite.”

“No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning.”

“Perhaps this is also true of places. When you are in a certain place, great love or kindness happens; it imprints itself on the ether of the place. When we pass there, hungry and needy in spirit, that loving imprint shines on us like an icon.”

“The world can be harsh and negative, but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitably reveals itself. Something deep in the human soul seems to depend on the presence of kindness;”

“Treat your body carefully. Take care of it. Don’t let anyone abuse it, and don’t abuse it yourself. Every inch of your skin I made diligently; months I slaved over you. You are my masterpiece.

“She often remembered that building and wondered who owned it. Someone very kind she was sure for in front of every one of the many seats there had been a little carpet-eared puppy-sized dog-bed.”

“The strongest human beings, the ones who laugh the loudest and hope the hardest, the ones who are always there for others- those souls often need people there for them. So, please- check on your kind friends.”

″ ‘Child!’ said the cuckoo, suddenly changing his tone, ‘you are very foolish. Is a kind thought or action ever wasted? Can your eyes see what such good seeds grow into? They have wings, Griselda- kindness have wings and roots, remember that- wings never droop and roots never die. What do you think I came and sat outside your window for?’ ”

“Love is patient, love is kind, love means slowly losing your mind.”

“I had now been with him every moment of the day and night for two months, but I had not seen him. I remember that ugly welted face. But now, in my memory, it did not seem ugly at all. It seemed only kind and strong.”

“Go to where you are kindest”

“But it’s very thoughtful of you to say that. It shows a kind heart, and I think that’s so much more important than being clever.”

“If you get to like them and understand them, if you are kind to them and don’t scratch their paint or bang their doors, if you fill them up when they need it, if you keep them clean and polished and out of the rain and snow as much as possible, you will find, you may find, that they become almost like persons- more than just ordinary persons: magical persons!”

“be kind. People are just happy to be alive. Our kindness fuels their gratitude, and hopefully our own.”

“But he’ll never even try to beat me, I know; and Aunt Gwen- she’s worse, because she’s a child-lover, and she’s kind.”

“It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”

″‘Nothing beats kindness,’ said the horse. ‘It sits quietly beyond all things.‘”

“At least Jenny Curran acted like I was there.”

“It was deeply a part of Lee’s kindness and understanding that man’s right to kill himself is inviolable, but sometimes a friend can make it unnecessary”

“Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle.”

“But if, once we return to the real world of human choice, we choose to be kind and generous, that is real love.”

“The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.”

“The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!”

“If you are honest, people may deceive you. Be honest anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness. Be kind anyway.”

“That day, I learned that I could be a giver simply by bringing a smile to another person. The ensuing years have taught me that a kind word or a vote of support can be a charitable gift. I can move over and make another place for another to sit. I can turn my music up if it pleases, or down if it is annoying. I may never be known as a philanthropist, but I certainly want to be known as charitable.”

“Remember death. Even for those who wield great power, life is brief. There is only one way to triumph over death, and that is by making our lives masterpieces. We must seize every opportunity to show kindness and to love fully.”

“Because I don’t think Voldemort is capable of having a kind son—and you’re kind, Scorpius. To the depths of your belly, to the tips of your fingers.”

“You were born worthy of love and you remain worthy of love. Be kind to yourself.”

“Teach them the quiet verbs of kindness, to live beyond themselves. Urge them toward excellence, drive them toward gentleness, pull them deep into yourself, pull them upward toward manhood, but softly like an angel arranging clouds. Let your spirit move through them softly.”