Theme
Kindness
Compassion, generosity, and treating others well.
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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.
“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives”
“A person's a person, no matter how small”
“A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain”
“Always look for the helpers. There's always someone who is trying to help”
“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you”
“As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is”
“As to diseases, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least, to do no harm”
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”
“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness”
“Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy”
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed”
“Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it and you'll start believing in it”
“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break”
“God bless us, every one!”
“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts”
“I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks”
“I can think of no more stirring symbol of man's humanity to man than a fire engine”
“I never met a man I didn't like”
“I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it”
“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain”
“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place”
“If you let money pile up, it starts to stink. But if you spread it around then it can do a lot of good”
“If You Want to Know What a Man's Like, Look at How He Treats His Inferiors”
“In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon”
“It's the Guy You Give Something To That You Can't Please”
“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs”
“Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'”
“Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love”
“Money is like muck, not good except it be spread”
“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love”
“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others”
“Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?”
“Social media made y'all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it”
“That best portion of a good man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love”
“The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted”
“The man who dies rich dies disgraced”
“The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced”
“The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind”
“The only beautiful eyes are those that look at us tenderly”
“The only way to have a friend is to be one”
“The quality of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes”
“The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance”
“The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so”
“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity”
“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”
“To err is human, to forgive, divine”
“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost”
“We must reach out our hand in friendship both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy”
“Well, nobody's perfect”
“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others”
“Whoever is happy will make others happy too”
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds”
“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want”
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you”
“You've made this day a special day, by just your being you”
“Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today”
“Don't look for big things, just do small things with great love. The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love”
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion”
“Ignorance of each other is what has made unity impossible in the past. Therefore we need enlightenment. We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity”
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive”
“My true religion is Kindness”
“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”
“The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence”
“There is no room in baseball for discrimination. It is our national pastime and a game for all”
“You can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!”
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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.
“To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity”
ReallyDonald A. Adams · not Douglas Adams
“She is always kind to her inferiors. — But where does she find them?”
ReallyDorothy Parker
“Just Walk Beside Me and Be My Friend”
ReallyAnonymous · not Albert Camus
“Surround yourself with people who make you happy. People who make you laugh, who help you when you're in need. People who genuinely care. They are the ones worth keeping in your life. Everyone else is just passing through”
ReallyUnknown · not Karl Marx
“The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs”
ReallyLeo Tolstoy · not Karl Marx
“The only question with wealth is, what do you do with it?”
ReallyJohn D. Rockefeller Jr. · not John D. Rockefeller
“When 'I' is replaced with 'we,' illness becomes wellness”
ReallyCharles Roppel · not Malcolm X
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane”
ReallyMartin Luther King Jr.
“Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one”
ReallyCharles J. Sykes · not Bill Gates
“The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization”
ReallySigmund Freud, crediting an unnamed English writer
“A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self”
ReallyAuthor unknown · not Charles Dickens
“Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we'd give blood”
ReallyDouglas McGrath · not Charles Dickens
“Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude”
ReallyUnknown · not Anne Frank
“Be at War with Your Vices, at Peace with Your Neighbours, and Let Every New Year Find You a Better Person”
ReallyBenjamin Franklin · not Publilius Syrus
“Be Nice to People on Your Way Up. You'll Meet Them On Your Way Down”
ReallyWilson Mizner · not Jimmy Durante
“Fathers Should Give the Gift of Time to Their Children”
ReallyUnknown — an anonymous Father’s Day poem · not Ann Landers
“If We Are Here to Help Others, I Often Wonder What the Others Are Here For”
ReallyThomas Robert Dewar, 1st Baron Dewar · not W. H. Auden
“Our Host Certainly Is Outspoken" "Outspoken By Whom?”
ReallyUnknown — a stock joke in print by 1901 · not Ann Landers