Inspirational Quotes
Words of Wisdom to Live By!
by Gale Renz
September 08, 2006
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Inspirational Quotes |
"When you carry out acts of kindness you get a wonderful
feeling inside. It is as though something inside your body responds
and says, yes, this is how I ought to feel."
Author:Harold Kushner
"We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a
picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good
light."
Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.
"
Author:Confucius
"Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness,
but it is greatness."
Author:George Bernard Shaw
"Caring is a reflex. Someone slips, your arm goes out. A
car is in the ditch, you join the others and push...You live, you
help."
Author:Ram Dass
"We wildly underestimate the power of the tiniest
personal touch of kindness."
Author:Unknown
"One kind word can warm three winter
months."
Author:Japanese Proverb
"The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we
pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape
parades for us, no monuments created in our honor.
But that does not lessen our possible
impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just
like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion,
our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely
because we took the time to share what we had to give.
Too often we underestimate the power of a
touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment,
or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to
turn a life around. It's overwhelming to consider the continuous
opportunities there are to make our love felt."
Author:Leo Buscaglia
"Kindness is for all times in all situations -- not just
when it suits you."
Author:Audray Landrum
"There is no tally sheet in the exchange of small
kindnesses; but there is shared memory and, from each person, the
assurances of good things to come."
Author:Lady Borton
"Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into a flame
by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who
have rekindled this light."
Author:Albert Schweitzer
"Compassion for others begins with kindness to
ourselves."
Author:Pema Chodron
"How far you go in life depends on your being tender
with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the
striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in
your life you will have been all of these."
Author:George Washington Carver
"Give to another human being without the expectation of
a return."
Author:Bill Bradley
"There is a wonderful, mystical law of nature that the
three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace
of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone
else."
Author:Unknown
"How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines
a good deed in a weary world."
Author:William Shakespeare
"If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it
shows that he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no
island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to
them."
Author:Francis Bacon
"Help your brother's boat across, and your own will
reach the shore."
Author:Hindu Proverb
"Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the
blind can read."
Author:Mark Twain
"Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than
you dare to think."
Author:Unknown
"In Compassion lies the world's true
strength."
Author:Buddha
"It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give
unasked, through understanding."
Author:Kahlil Gibran
"The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the
rose."
Author:Hadia Bejar
"Speak only the truth. Act with only the best
intentions. Once you get into the habit, you can live by this
code."
Author:Unknown
"The one who will be found in trial capable of great
acts of love is ever the one who is always doing considerate small
ones."
Author:F. W. Robertson
"We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a
big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make
which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot
foresee."
Author:Marian Wright-Edelman
"Do good and care not to whom."
Author:Italian Proverb
"Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude
to you, not because they are kind, but because you
are."
Author:Unknown
"It is difficult to give away kindness. It keeps coming
back to you."
Author:Cort Flint
"Don't wait for people to be kind, show them
how."
Author:Unknown
"A candle loses none of its light by lighting another
candle."
Author:Unknown
"The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer
somebody else up."
Author:Mark Twain
"He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as
unkind as if he had refused it."
Author:Dante
"How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches
it."
Author:George Alliston
"Strive to be first: first to nod, first to smile, first
to compliment, and first to forgive."
Author:Unknown
"Nice, how we never get dizzy from doing good
turns."
Author:George Bengis
"Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but
small ones surround us every day."
Author:Sally Koch
"Remember not only to say the right thing in the right
place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong
thing at the tempting moment."
Author:Benjamin Franklin
"No one needs a smile as much as a person who fails to
give one."
Author:Unknown
"If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just
one."
Author:Mother Teresa
"Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others
cannot keep it from themselves."
Author:James Matthew Barrie
"There's good in everybody. Boost. Don't
knock."
Author:Warren G. Harding
"Today, make an investment in someone else's
happiness."
Author:Unknown
"Little kindnesses...will broaden your heart, and slowly
you will habituate yourself to helping your fellow man in many
ways."
Author:Zadik
"Change the world one act of kindness at a time.
Remember, our kindness is our power!"
Author:Maribel - RAK Kindness Coordinator
"Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In
all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times
you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you
can."
Author:John Wesley
"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If
you want to be happy, practice compassion."
Author:The Dalai Lama
"Kindness is never wasted. If it has no effect on the
recipient, at least it benefits the bestower."
Author:S. H. Simmons
"Kindness is tenderness. Kindness is love...Kindness is
good will. Kindness says, I want you to be happy."
Author:Randolph Ray
"Be nice and smile to everyone you meet. You don't know
what they are going through, and they may need that smile, and
treasure it."
Author:Christine M. Huppert
"One can pay back the loan of gold, but one lies forever
in debt to those who are kind."
Author:Malaysian Proverb
"We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what
we give."
Author:Winston Churchill
"Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish
much."
Author:Blaise Pascal
"To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the
business of life."
Author:Samuel Johnson
"A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making
everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles."
Author:Washington Irving
"As perfume to the flower, so is kindness to
speech."
Author:Katherine Francke
"Is there any one maxim which ought to be acted upon
throughout one's whole life? Surely the maxim of loving kindness is
such."
Author:Confucius
"You can accomplish by kindness what you cannot by
force."
Author:Publilius Syrus
"It really is much easier to help people and causes than
what most people seem to think. You just go out and take that first
step and things start falling in place. If they don't, you change
direction, but you never pull over and park!"
Author:Jason Crowe, founder (at age 11) of The Cello Cries On,
Inc.
"If someone were to pay you ten cents for every kind
word you ever spoke and collect five cents for every unkind word,
would you be rich or poor?"
Author:Nonpareil
"There are times that when truth and kindness conflict,
one ought to choose kindness, especially when a little honesty is
better than a lot."
Author:Leroy Jack Syrop
"So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs."
Author:Ella Wheeler Wilcox
"The value of kindness cannot be measured in human
terms. An act of kindness enriches the heart of both the giver and
the receiver.
People who have received a little act of kindness so small as a
grain from another, tasted it and then, even if they receive an
unkind act or word bigger than a palm tree, when they think of that
little grain of kindness, the palm tree of unkindness will
disappear.
So powerful is the act of kindness. Let us plant it in the centre
of our hearts."
Author:Br. Arockiam, kindness website builder
"If you were busy being kind,
Before you knew it, you would find
You'd soon forget to think 'twas true
That someone was unkind to you.
If you were busy being glad,
And cheering people who are sad,
Although your heart might ache a bit,
You'd soon forget to notice it."
Author:R. Foreman
"A second quality of mature spirituality is kindness. It
is based on a fundamental notion of
self-acceptance...."
Author:Jack Kornfield
"There's something wonderfully rewarding in being part
of an effort that does make a difference."
Author:Brian O'Connell
"Giving of ourselves is the way we change the world at
the end of our fingertips."
Author:Richard F. Schubert
"Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our
deeds."
Author:George Eliot
"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this
life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping
himself."
Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I have never been especially impressed by the heroics
of people convinced that they are about to change the world. I am
more awed by...those who...struggle to make one small difference
after another."
Author:Ellen Goodman
"All of us are born for a reason, but all of us don't
discover why. Success in life has nothing to do with what you gain
in life or accomplish for yourself. It's what you do for
others."
Author:Danny Thomas
"Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If
he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what
it is the world needs most."
Author:Pablo Casals, Spanish Cellist
"Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those
little bits of good put together that overwhelm the
world."
Author:Archbishop Desmond Tutu
"For attractive lips, speak words of
kindness."
Author:Audrey Hepburn, when asked about her beauty secrets
"Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes
ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility
to evaporate."
Author:Albert Schweitzer
"A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain, while
witty saying are as easily lost as the pearls slipping from a
broken string."
Author:George D. Prentice
"If you have not often felt the joy of doing a kind act,
you have neglected much, and most of all yourself."
Author:A. Neilen
"Kind words produce their own image in men's souls; and
a beautiful image it is. They soothe and quiet and comfort the
hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We
have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they
ought to be used."
Author:Blaise Pascal
"Kind hearts are the gardens,
Kind thoughts are the roots,
Kind words are the flowers,
Kind deeds are the fruits.
Take care of your garden
And keep out the weeds,
Fill it with sunshine
Kind words and kind deeds."
Author:Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is
not."
Author:Samuel Johnson
"Wise sayings often fall on barren ground; but a kind
word is never thrown away."
Author:Sir Arthur Helps
"Kind words, kind looks, kind acts and warm handshakes,
these are means of grace when men in trouble are fighting their
unseen battles."
Author:John Hall
"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a
smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the
smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a
life around."
Author:Leo Buscaglia
"When you do a kindness for others with the purest of
intentions, you are letting its essence trickle out of you. If you
do it enough it becomes a river. And I'm betting that its source is
endless. I don't think you have to worry about giving too much of
it away."
Author:Dave, Community Organizer, FL
"[I have learned] about opening the heart, being more
understanding, more loving, kinder."
Author:Barbra Streisand
"Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and
despair, but manifestations of strength and
resolution."
Author:Kahlil Gibran
"I've found what's truly sacred in life's small
things...Hopefully, the world can be changed through acts of
kindness, acts of affection and love--the idea of doing normal,
everyday things that actually have an effect down the line...Be
kind. Because the opposite works as well. You can send your hatred
to the future. And we all know the end result."
Author:Sting
"Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or
softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be
cruel to be tough."
Author:Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Isn't it amazing how often we can touch someone's life,
and enrich our own, by a very simple act? Kindness, pass it
on...what a wonderful way in which to pattern our
lives!"
Author:Betty, Community Organizer, WA
"The ideas that have lighted my way have been kindness,
beauty and truth."
Author:Albert Einstein
"When you are kind to others, it not only changes you,
it changes the world."
Author:Harold Kushner
"After RAK Week, there is more laughter, more unity,
less gossip, more openness and honesty."
Author:Peter, Teacher, NM
"Kindness generates pride, a sense of accomplishment, a
"Hey, look what we did!" feeling."
Author:Patrick, Teacher, PA
"Random Acts of Kindness has brought more meaning into
my life, and I am committed to help spread the word."
Author:Carol, State Parent Facilitator, HI
"In a classroom where kindness is emphasized and
unkindness is not tolerated, students feel free to ask
questions."
Author:Sherry, Teacher, MS
"When students are frustrated or get involved in
put-down behavior, Random Acts of Kindness works
beautifully."
Author:Kathy, Teacher, CA
"I decided to get involved with kindness because it is
the foundation of what a safe community is based on."
Author:Rita, Education Administrator, CO
"Random Acts of Kindness is the most exciting thing I've
ever done. It has changed my life. People are so receptive. It just
grows and grows!"
Author:Betty, Community Organizer, WA
"Kindness builds self-esteem. It provides students with
an opportunity to feel pride in who they are and in what they
do."
Author:Janice, Teacher, NJ
"Kind deeds help empower children. They get to see a
direct connection between their deeds and the reactions of
others."
Author:Peter, Teacher, NM
"No act of kindness, however small, is ever
wasted."
Author:Aesop
"Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their
echoes are truly endless."
Author:Mother Teresa
"I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do
everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do
the something I can do."
Author:Helen Keller
"I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good,
therefore, that I can do or any kindness 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."
Author:Stephen Grellet, Quaker missionary
"Seek not good from without; seek it within yourselves,
or you will never find it."
Author:Epictetus (2nd century)
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single
minute before starting to improve the world."
Author:Anne Frank
"He who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who
plants kindness gathers love."
Author:St. Basil (330-379), Greek religious leader
"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."
Author:Pooh's Little Instruction Book (inspired by A.A. Milne)
"Remember there's no such thing as a small act of
kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical
end."
Author:Scott Adams
"This is my simple religion. There is no need for
temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own
heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."
Author:The Dalai Lama
"What wisdom can you find that is greater than
kindness?"
Author:Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by
being kind."
Author:Eric Hoffer
"One of the most difficult things to give away is
kindness; it usually comes back to you. "
Author:Anonymous
"Deeds of kindness are equal in weight to all the
commandments."
Author:The Talmud
"We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason
is to throw little torches out to lead people through the
dark."
Author:Whoopi Goldberg
"Kindness gives birth to kindness."
Author:Sophocles (447 BC)
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that
ever has."
Author:Margaret Mead
"Kindness is gladdening the hearts of those who are
traveling the dark journey with us."
Author:Henri-Frederic Amiel
"A kind and compassionate act is often its own
reward."
Author:William John Bennett
"Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a
difference."
Author:Barbara DeAngelis
"Have you had a kindness shown? Pass it on; 'Twas not
given for thee alone, Pass it on; Let it travel down the years, Let
it wipe another's tears, Till in Heaven the deed appears, Pass it
on."
Author:Henry Burton
"A person's true wealth is the good he or she does in
the world."
Author:Mohammed
"Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound
together."
Author:Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
"We must be the change we wish to see in the
world."
Author:Gandhi
"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."
Author:Mother Teresa
"Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and
despair, but manifestations of strength and
resolution."
Author:Kahlil Gibran
"A little kindness from person to person is better than
a vast love for all humankind."
Author:Richard Dehmel
"Always be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard
battle."
Author:Plato
"Kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in
thinking creates profoundness, kindness in feeling creates
love."
Author:Lao-Tzu
"The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes
up for the acts of greed in the headlines."
Author:Charles Kuralt
"When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not
only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to
develop inner happiness and peace."
Author:The Dalai Lama
"Life is not so short but that there is always time
enough for courtesy."
Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The best portion of a good man's life: his little,
nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love."
Author:William Wordsworth
"Of all the ways you can think of, none has a sixteenth
part of the value of lovingkindness. Lovingkindness is a freedom of
the heart which takes in all the ways. It is luminous, shining,
blazing forth. "
Author:Itivuttaka Sutta
"Only your compassion and your loving kindness are
invincible, and without limit."
Author:Thich Nhat Hanh
"People will forget what you said, people will forget
what you did, but people will never forget how you made them
feel."
Author:Bonnie Jean Wasmund
"A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making
everything in its vicinity into smiles."
Author:Washington Irving
"Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes
the ice melt, kindness causes misunderstandings, mistrust, and
hostility to evaporate."
Author:Albert Schweitzer
"Kindness is more than deeds. It is an attitude, an
expression, a look, a touch. It is anything that lifts another
person."
Author:C. Neil Strait
"Kindness and honesty can only be expected from the
strong."
Author:Unknown
"The kindness and affection from the public have carried
me through some of the most difficult periods, and always your love
and affection have eased the journey."
Author:Diana, Princess of Wales
"Kindness is an inner desire that makes us want to do
good things even if we do not get anything in return. It is the joy
of our life to do them. When we do good things from this inner
desire, there is kindness in everything we think, say, want, and
do."
Author:Emanuel Swedenborg
"One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will
be a friend better than any possession."
Author:Sophocles
"Compassion, kindness, and concern can be found
everywhere in America. And if we have learned nothing else from
this [Sept. 11th] tragedy, we have learned that our time on earth
is short, so there is simply no time for hate."
Author:Sandra Dahl, wife of Jason Dahl, pilot of Flight 93
"Though we all have the fear and the seeds of anger
within us, we must learn not to water those seeds and instead
nourish our positive qualities -- those of compassion,
understanding, and loving kindness."
Author:Thich Nhat Hanh
"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation.
We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but
rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we
repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. [Ed.
note: This is true of many values, including
kindness.]"
Author:Aristotle
"A kind deed a day, like little drops of rain, Makes a
mighty ocean and a gracious nation. "
Author:Lin Hsiu Nei
"If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten
your path."
Author:Buddhist saying
"You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know
how soon it will be too late."
Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand
ordinary acts of kindness that define our days."
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
"As much as we need a prosperous economy, we also need a
prosperity of kindness and decency."
Author:Caroline Kennedy Schlossburg
"Kindness has always mattered to our father. He taught
us to honor people, and he has encouraged us since before I can
remember to empathize with human suffering. When I was a teenage
he'd say, 'Ann, go do something that helps people. Do something of
service. It will always make you feel good about your
life.'"
Author:Ann Curry, news anchor
"It's only me, but I can change a life."
Author:Liz, high school student
"To give without any reward, or any notice, has a
special quality of its own."
Author:Anne Morrow Lindbergh
"We need a new ethos of greater responsibility and
caring."
Author:Hillary Rodham Clinton
"A good heart is better than all the heads in the
world."
Author:Edward Lytton
"Tell them, that, to ease them of their griefs, Their
fear of hostile strokes, their aches, losses, Their pangs of love,
with other incident throes That nature's fragile vessel doth
sustain In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them.
"
Author:Shakespeare
"When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I
am old, I admire kind people. "
Author:Abraham Joshua Heschel
"Wherever there is a human being, there is an
opportunity for kindness."
Author:Seneca, philosopher (4 BC)
"'Wherever there's a human being, there's an opportunity
for kindness.' You don't have to plan some big event. You can be
strolling the hall in school and say 'hi' to a stranger. Simplicity
is the way, you know?"
Author:Bow, high school student
"The various features and aspects of human life, such as
longevity, good health, success, happiness, and so forth, which we
consider desirable, are all dependent on kindness and a good
heart."
Author:The Dalai Lama
"Giving connects two people, the giver and the receiver,
and this connection gives birth to a new sense of
belonging."
Author:Deepak Chopra
"There is hunger for ordinary bread, and there is hunger
for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness, and this is the great
poverty that makes people suffer so much."
Author:Mother Teresa
"Man is honored for his wisdom, loved for his
kindness."
Author:S. Cohen
"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but
each one of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in
the total of all those acts will be written the history of this
generation. "
Author:Robert Kennedy
"In the midst of global crises such as pollution, wars
and famine, kindness may too easily be dismissed as a "soft
issue," or a luxury to be addressed after the urgent problems
are solved. But kindness is the greatest need in all those areas --
kindness toward the environment, toward other nations, toward the
needs of people who are suffering. Until we reflect basic kindness
in everything we do, our political gestures will be fleeting and
fragile. Simple kindness may be the most vital key to the riddle of
how human beings can live with each other in peace, and care
properly for this planet we all share."
Author:Bo Lozoff
"Kindness is the light that dissolves all walls between
souls, families, and nations."
Author:Paramahansa Yogananda
"Once you begin to acknowledge random acts of
kindness--both the ones you have received and the ones you have
given--you can no longer believe that what you do does not
matter."
Author:Dawna Markova
"Power is the ability to do good things for
others."
Author:Brooke Astor
"Giving is the secret of a healthy life. Not necessarily
money, but whatever a person has of encouragement, sympathy and
understanding."
Author:John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
"Only a life lived for others is worth
living."
Author:Albert Einstein
"When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope
they'll remember and be kind to someone else. And it'll become like
wildfire."
Author:Whoopi Goldberg
"Life's most persistent and urgent question is,
"What are you doing for others?""
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Waste no more time talking about great souls and how
they should be. Become one yourself!"
Author:Marcus Aurelius
"Right actions for the future are the best apologies for
wrong ones in the past."
Author:Tyron Edwards
"It is our special duty, that if anyone needs our help,
we should give him such help to the utmost of our
power."
Author:Cicero
"The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good
intention."
Author:Duguet
"Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to
get -- only what you are expecting to give."
Author:Katherine Hepburn
"Every day I see at least one person who is struggling
or having a hard day, and I try to smile or say, 'Hi,' even if I
don't know them. Sometimes that simple 'Hi' -- that reaching out to
them in a friendly way -- could change how they're feeling. Someone
once wrote, 'Make yourself a blessing to someone. Your kind smile
or pat on the back just might pull someone back from the edge.' I
live by that."
Author:Sara, high school student
"The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by
stealth, and to have it found out by accident."
Author:Charles Lamb (1775-1834), British essayist
"To be able to practice five things everywhere under
heaven constitutes perfect virtue... gravity, generosity of soul,
sincerity, earnestness, and kindness."
Author:Confucius (551-479 BC)
"Love all. Serve all. Help ever. Hurt
never."
Author:Sathya Sai Baba
