Great Throughts Treasury

"It's what each of us sows, and how, that gives to us character and prestige. Seeds of kindness, goodwill, and human understanding, planted in fertile soil, spring up into deathless friendships, big deeds of worth, and a memory that will not soon fade out. We are all sowers of seeds - and let us never forget it!" - George Matthew Adams

"Kindness, the poetry of the heart." - Louis-Aimé Martin

"Courtesy, kindness, sincerity, truthfulness, thoughtfulness and good manners translated into behavior reflect one's true character." - Harry F. Banks, real name possibly Harry Band

"Your greatness is measured by your kindness - Your education and intellect by your modesty - Your ignorance is betrayed by your suspicions and prejudices - Your real caliber is measured by the consideration and tolerance you have for others." - William J. H. Boetcker, fully William John Henry Boetcker

"Kindness is a language the dumb can speak, and the deaf can hear and understand." - Christian Nestell Bovee

"Write your name in kindness, love, and mercy on the hearts of thousands you come in contact with year by year, and you will never be forgotten. Your name and your good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven." - Allan Chalmers, fully Allan Knight Chalmers

"Live for something. Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue that the storm of time can never destroy. Write you name, in kindness, love, and mercy, on the hearts of thousands you come in contact with year by year; you will never be forgotten. No, your name, your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind as the stars on the brow of evening. Good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven." - Thomas Chalmers

"Your awareness of your self-worth is not a contradiction to the obligation to be humble. Humility is not a lack of awareness of your positive accomplishments and abilities. Only a fool is not aware of what he really is an this is not humility. Humility is the internalized awareness with every fiber of your body that everything, yes everything, you have is not your own. Rather it is a gift from the Almighty who bestowed His kindness on you. The more a person actually feels that what he has is a gift the greater is his humility." - Yehuda Leib Chasman

"The more someone needs your assistance the greater is the act of kindness. The more unfortunate your guest, the happier you can feel that you are able to help him." -

"Man is honored for his wisdom, loved for his kindness." - Shalom Cohen

"The more kindness we heap upon one who hates us, the more we arm him to betray us." - Pierre Cornielle

"Kindness acts not always as you think; a hated hand renders it odious." - Pierre Cornielle

"If you try to subdue your selfish motives - anger and so forth - and develop more kindness and compassion for others, ultimately you yourself will benefit more than you would otherwise. So sometimes I say that the wise selfish person should practice this way. Foolish selfish people are always thinking of themselves, and the result is negative. Wise selfish people think of others, help others as much as they can, and the result is that they too receive benefit." -

"If you make an effort to help everyone you meet, you will feel close to everyone. A stranger is someone you have not yet helped. Doing acts of kindness for everyone you can fills your world with friends and loved ones." - Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

"How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it!" -

"Kindness has converted more sinners than either zeal, eloquence, or learning." -

"Every time we hold our tongues instead of returning the sharp retort, show patience with another's faults, show a little more love and kindness, we are helping to stock-pile more of these peace-bringing qualities in the world instead of armaments for war." - Constance Foster

"The center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days." - Stephan Jay Gould

"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, born Étienne de Grellet du Mabillier

"Kindness and intelligence don’t always deliver us from the pitfalls and traps: there are always failures of love, of will, of imagination. There is no way to take the danger out of human relationships." - Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

"Kindness is the inability to remain at ease in the presence of another person who is ill at ease, the inability to remain comfortable in the presence of another who is uncomfortable, the ability to have peace of mind when one's neighbor is troubled." - Samuel H. Holdenson

"A happy life is made up of little things in which smiles and small favors are given habitually. A gift sent, a letter written, a call made, a recommendation given, transportation provided, a cake made, a book lent, a check sent - things which are done without hesitation. Kindness isn't sacrifice so much as it is being considerate for the feelings of others, sharing happiness, the unselfish thought, the spontaneous and friendly act, forgetfulness of our own present interests." - Carl Holmes

"Always set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you." -

"Kindness is in our power, but fondness is not." -

"You are rich, though you do not know it. You have wells of kindness within your heart. At times man will bless you more for a smile, a kindly glance, a gesture of forgiveness, than for treasures of gold." - BaMishol HaTzar. Kabak

"Kindness is virtue itself." -

"Praise is sometimes a good thing for the diffident and despondent. It teaches them properly to rely on the kindness of others." - Letitia Elizabeth Landon

"Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in another." - Walter Savage Landor

"Acting without design, occupying oneself without making a business of it, finding the great in what is small and the many in the few, repaying injury with kindness, effecting difficult things while they are easy, and managing great things in their beginnings: this is the method of Tao." -

"Kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in thinking creates profoundness, kindness in giving creates love." -

"Requite injury with kindness." -

"Intelligence is kindness. Kindness is intelligence. The fundamental, which the two terms suggest in different ways... is the same quality on which all human civilization is built." - Alexander Meiklejohn

"What is good” I asked in a musing mood. Order, said the law court; Knowledge said the school; Truth, said the wise man; Pleasure, said the fool; Love, said the maiden; Beauty, said the sage. Fame, said the soldier; Equity, said the seer. Spoke my heart sadly: “The answer is not here.” then within my bosom softly this I heard: “Each heart holds the secret: Kindness is the word.”" -

"The meed of charity is in its measure of kindness." - Eleazar ben Pedat

"If you lend a person any money, it becomes lost for any purpose as one’s own. When you ask for it back again, you may find a friend made an enemy by your kindness. If you begin to press still further, either you must part with that which you have intrusted, or else you must lose that friend." - Plautus, full name Titus Maccius Plautus NULL

"It is a kindness to refuse gently what you intend to deny." - Publius Syrus

"The less gratitude you receive for doing a kind act, the greater the value of the act. True kindness is when we do not receive anything in return for what we do." - Rashi, born Shlomo ben Yitzchok, aka Salomon Isaacides, Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki NULL

"Rule by kindness rather than fear." - Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL

"All the kindness which a man puts out into the world works on the heart and thoughts of mankind, but we are so foolishly indifferent that we are never in earnest in the matter of kindness. We want to topple a great load over, and yet will not avail ourselves of a lever which would multiply our power a hundredfold." - Albert Schweitzer

"Wherever there is a human being there is a chance for kindness." -

"Kindness is the one commodity of which you should spend more than you earn." - Theodore N. Tiemeyer

"Charity should be the habit of our estimates; kindness of our feelings; benevolence of our affections; cheerfulness of our social intercourse; generosity of our living; improvement of our progress; prayer of our desires; fidelity of our sex-examination; being and doing good of our entire life." - John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

"The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love." - William Wordsworth

"The true and noble way to kill a foe, is not to kill him; you, with kindness, may so change him that he shall cease to be a foe, and then he is slain." - Aleyn NULL

"Liberty, equality - bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is justice, and justice towards the feeble becomes necessarily protection or kindness." -

"Kindness is wisdom; there is none in life but needs it, and may learn." - Gamaliel Bailey

"I have always been subconsciously embarrassed by the “function” of Christmas and New Years - the spirit of “loving kindness,” that is presumed to come to a head like a boil once a year, when it has been magnificently concealed up to that moment!" - John Barrymore

"Love is perfect kindness, which is born - there is no doubt - from the heart and eyes. The eyes make it blossom; the heart matures it." - Guiraut de Borneilh

"Words of praise, indeed, are almost as necessary to warm a child into a congenial life as acts of kindness and affection. Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers." - Christian Nestell Bovee

"Kindness is a language the dumb can speak, and the deaf can hear and understand." - John Christian Bovee