Theme
Kindness
Compassion, generosity, and treating others well.
Every quote here is provenance-checked. AI will happily put a fake quote on a beautiful slide — these are the ones you can actually use, with the right name on them.
Ready for your slide
Verified quotes about kindness
Each is traced to a real source and correctly credited. ✓ Free to use = public domain, cleared for commercial reuse. Open one for a paste-ready credit line and its reuse status.
“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you”
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”
“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain”
“Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?”
“The only way to have a friend is to be one”
“The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so”
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it”
“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart”
“Whoever is happy will make others happy too”
“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier”
“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy”
No public-domain quotes on this theme yet — try another, or use an in-copyright one with attribution.
Don’t get caught out
Commonly shared about kindness — but misattributed
Popular kindness lines that get pinned on the wrong name. If you use one, credit it correctly.
“A patient is the most important person in our hospital. He is not an interruption to our work, he is the purpose of it”
ReallyKenneth B. Elliott (original “customer” wording) · not Mahatma Gandhi
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle”
ReallyJohn Watson (“Ian Maclaren”) · not Plato
“Empathy is the highest form of knowledge”
ReallyBill Bullard · not Plato
“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry”
ReallySam Levenson · not Audrey Hepburn
“Hate destroys the hater”
ReallyAnonymous (a folk proverb, attested by 1897) · not Martin Luther King Jr.
“He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself”
ReallySeneca the Younger · not William Shakespeare
“I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends”
ReallyAbraham Lincoln · not Abraham Lincoln
“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that”
ReallyJessica Dovey (opening line) & Martin Luther King Jr. (the rest) · not Martin Luther King Jr.
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them”
ReallyMother Teresa
“Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much”
ReallyUnknown — a New York Evangelist essayist · not Blaise Pascal
“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love”
ReallyLao Tzu (misattributed) · not Lao Tzu
“Music soothes the savage beast”
ReallyWilliam Congreve
“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”
ReallyRobert J. Hanlon · not Napoleon Bonaparte
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted”
ReallyAesop
“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love”
ReallyMother Teresa (Saint Teresa of Calcutta)
“People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered; forgive them anyway”
ReallyKent M. Keith · not Mother Teresa
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”
ReallyCarl W. Buehner (earliest credited) · not Maya Angelou
“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder”
ReallyRumi (attribution unsupported)