Quotes About Kindness

Deeds that seemed unimportant at the time would prove to have been momentous; a tiny act of selfishness and unkindness or, conversely, an unconsidered act of generosity would become the measure of a human life

Compassion does not, of course, mean to feel pity or condescend, but to feel with

I tremble for our world, where, in the smallest of ways, we find it impossible... to find room for the other in our minds. If we cannot accommodate a viewpoint in a friend without resorting to unkindness, how can we hope to heal the terrible problems of our planet?

As we develop our compassionate mind, we should feel an increasing sense of responsibility for the suffering of others and form a resolve to do everything we can to free them from their pain.

Compassion asks us to look into our hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse to inflict that pain on anybody else.

If a stranger lives with you in your land, do not molest him. You must treat him like one of your own people and love him as yourselves, for you were strangers in Egypt.

Our Master's Way," explained one of his pupils, "is nothing but this: doing-your-best-for-others (zhong) and consideration (shu)."3

the attempt to become a compassionate human being is a lifelong project.

Charity," Davidson continues, "is forced on us, whether we like it or not; if we want to understand others, we must count them right in most matters."13

There are many opinionated religious people who would do well to heed Paul's warnings to the "strong" who were intimidating the "weak" with their overbearing certainty. Above all, we need to take seriously Paul's insight that no virtue was valid unless it was imbued with a love that was not a luxurious emotion in the heart but must be expressed daily and practically in self-emptying concern for others.

if we harm our neighbors, we also inflict damage on ourselves. There

We are trying to retrain our responses and form mental habits that are kinder, gentler, and less fearful of others.

A truly compassionate person touches a chord in us that resonates with some of our deepest yearnings. People flock to such individuals, because they seem to offer a haven of peace in a violent, angry world. This is the ideal to which we aspire, and it is not beyond our capacity. But even if we achieve only a fraction of this enlightenment and leave the world marginally better because we have lived in it, our lives will have been worthwhile.

The Golden Rule requires self-knowledge; it asks that we use our own feelings as a guide to our behavior with others. If we treat ourselves harshly, this is the way we are likely to treat other people. So we need to acquire a healthier and more balanced knowledge of our strengths as well as our weaknesses. As

Compassion has dropped so far out of sight these days that many are confused about what is required. It even inspires overt hostility.

When these impoverished, indebted folk asked him what they should do, he told them to share what little they had with those who were even worse off—an ethic that would become central to Jesus's movement: "Whoever has two shirts must share with him who has none, and whoever has food must do the same."12

what Tibetan Buddhists call "the inability to bear the sight of another's sorrow," so that we feel it almost as intensely as we feel our own. We

cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

compassion" derives from the Latin patiri and the Greek pathein, meaning "to suffer, undergo, or experience." So "compassion" means "to endure [something] with another person," to put ourselves in somebody else's shoes

the Golden Rule, which asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.

Compassion can be defined, therefore, as an attitude of principled, consistent altruism. The

Take the advice I sometimes have to give to myself: Don't say something permanently painful just because you are temporarily ticked off.

When showering life-giving words on another human, don't just pick the people you know well. Notice the one who least expects to be noticed.

Don't say something permanently painful just because you are temporarily ticked off.