This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Words of praise, indeed, are almost as necessary to warm a child into congenial life as acts of kindness and affection. Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers." - John Christian Bovee
"The kindness of some is too much like the echo, returning the counterpart of what it receives, not more, and sometimes less." - George Hull Bowers
"Getters generally don't get happiness; givers get it. You simply give to others a bit of yourself - a thoughtful act, a helpful idea, a word of appreciation., a lift over a rough spot, a sense of understanding, a timely suggestion. You take something out of your mind, garnished in kindness out of your heart, and put it into the other fellow's mind and heart." - Charles H. Burr
"We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique." - John Dewey
"Kindness which is not inexhaustible does not deserve the name." - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
"“Knowledge, without common sense," says Lee, "is folly; without method, it is waste; without kindness, is it death." But with common sense, it is wisdom; with method, it is power; with charity, it is beneficence; with religion, it is virtue and life and peace." - Austin Madsen Farrer
"Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"The steady pressure to consume, absorb, participate, receive, by eye, ear, mouth and mail involves a cruelty to intestines, blood pressure, and psyche unparalleled in history. We are being killed with kindness. We are being stifled with culture and material joys." - Herbert Gold
"Ninety per cent of all mental illness that comes before me could have been prevented, or cured by ordinary kindness." - William McGrath
"If what must be given is given willingly the kindness is doubled." - Publius Syrus
"High theory and mere mind-stimulation are secondary; living itself - in the real world, among people - is the essence... I hereby promise to attempt to be a mensh, a decent, caring human being. Neutrality, noncommitment, indifference have no place in life. To be fully human, we are committed to being caring, sensitive, aggressively compassionate people. Our lives are defined by how we act. We are alive because we perform just and righteous deeds, deeds of gentle loving kindness." - Danny Siegel
"Funerals are always occasions for pious lying. A deep vein of superstition and a sudden touch of kindness always lead people to give the departed credit for more virtues than he possessed." - I. F. Stone, fully Isidor Feinstein Stone, born Isidor Feinstein
"Use all your intelligence and experience in managing your own life, employing the tenderness you would expect to find in a being of ideal kindness." - Abbé Henri De Tourville
"Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end." - Scott Adams, fully Scott Raymond Adams
"The doorways to the realm of Brahma are right here on earth and they are four in number: through loving kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), sharing joy (muditha), and equanimity (upekha). It is through service in this world, not by abandoning this world that we attain to heavenly realms or spiritual fulfillment." -
"Nothing in all the world is left out or remains apart from the heart releasing loving-kindness." - Buddhist Discourses NULL
"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." - Albert Einstein
"The food of events is thought. Your habitual thoughts nourish your conditions and cause them to increase and multiply. Fear thoughts, gloomy and critical thoughts, selfish thoughts, are the food of unhappiness, sickness, and failure. When you supply this food in abundance these things come into your life – because they seek their food. Thoughts of God, thoughts of kindness, of optimism, and good will, are the food of health, joy, and success; and if you furnish a bountiful supply of this food you will attract these things instead." - Emmet Fox
"Life is mostly froth and bubble, two things stand like stone; kindness in another’s trouble, courage in your own." - Adam Lindsey Gordon
"A waste far more worthy of our tears is the enormous energy within us that never gets channeled, the love that is never expressed, the kindness that never surfaces, the compassion and tenderness that are never awakened." - Sidney Greenberg
"Greatness is a matter not of size but of quality, and it is within the reach of every one of us. Greatness lies in the faithful performance of whatever duties life places upon us and in the generous performance of the small acts of kindness that God has made possible for us. There is greatness in patient endurance; in unyielding loyalty to a goal; in resistance to the temptation to betray the best we know; in speaking up for the truth when it is assailed; in steadfast adherence to vows given and promises made. God does not ask us to do extraordinary things. He asks us to do ordinary things extraordinarily well." - Sidney Greenberg
"Love is the highest form of energy… Love is much more than just a feeling of affection or of passion. Love is making choices in ways that can help others (and ourself) to have a more joyful and creative journey. Love is a way of life. It is the path of compassion, respect and kindness for all people and living things. Love is honoring the connection to each other." - Tom Gregory
"I have witnessed the softening of the hardest of hearts by a simple smile. Human kindness can turn armaments into armistice." - Goldie Hawn, fully Goldie Jeanne Hawn
"We humans have the capacity to change the world with acts of love and kindness. Let’s start by teaching our children the importance of compassion." - Goldie Hawn, fully Goldie Jeanne Hawn
"If the instinctual and repressed kindness of mankind were suddenly let loose upon the earth, sooner than we think would we be members one of another, sitting around one family hearth-stone, and singing the song of the new humanity." - George D. Herron
"The marvels of God are not brought forth from one’s self. Rather, it is more like a chord, a sound that is played. The tone does not come out of the chord itself, but rather, through the touch of the musician. I am, or course, the lyre and harp of God’s kindness." - Hildegard of Bingen, also known as Saint Hildegard and Sibyl of the Rhine NULL
"What if I should discover that the poorest of the beggars and the most impudent of offenders are all within me, and that I stand in need of the alms of my own kindness; that I myself am the enemy who must be loved – what then?" - Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
"Virtues transcend time and culture (although their cultural expression may vary); justice and kindness, for example, will always and everywhere be virtues, regardless of how many people exhibit them." - Thomas Lickona, fully Thomas Edward Lickona
"One great Reason why many Children abandon themselves wholly to silly sports and trifle away all their time insipidly is because they found their Curiosity baulk’d and their Enquiries neglected. But had they been treated with more kindness and Respect and their Questions answered, as they should, to their Satisfaction, I doubt not but they would have taken more Pleasure in Learning and improving their Knowledge, wherein there would be still Newness and Variety, which is what they are delighted with, than in returning over and over to the same Play and Playthings." - John Locke
"Four simple questions have shaped the spiritual journeys of pilgrims and seekers for thousands of years. These questions enable us to gently awaken the four fundamental realms of inner life: Identity, Love, Daily Practice, and Kindness. (1) Who am I? We have within us an essential nature that is whole and unbroken. (2) What do I love? (3) How shall I live, knowing I will die? Every moment of life is a precious gift. (4) What is my gift to the family of the earth?" - Wayne Muller
"Loving kindness, sympathetic joy, compassion, mercy: These are the unmistakable footprints of our spiritual life." - Wayne Muller
"Kindness begets kindness." - Swedish Proverbs
"No matter how many times you have wronged or hurt by others, all it takes is one act of kindness to make you believe in the goodness that exists in the world." - Frederick H. Ryer, Sr.
"All the kindness which a man puts out into the world works on the heart and thoughts of mankind." - Albert Schweitzer
"As the sun makes the ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate." - Albert Schweitzer
"Without nonviolence - mind states of loving kindness and compassion - at the core of our societal construct, however, even the desire to protect and preserve can be manipulated in service to barbarism masquerading as idealism." - Charlene Spretnak
"It always seemed strange to me that 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." -
"Of all the love, kindness and pleasure a man can experience in this world, nothing is more beautiful than the love of a woman. If it is granted him, and the two have a child together, they are fused in a single heart in the child, which is truly the most pleasing thing love and kindness can give, and this will always be a bond between them." - T’ai-p’ing-ching [Classic of the Highest Peace or Book of Supreme Peace] by Yü Chi NULL
"The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on." - Julia Alvarez