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;void(0)) KINDNESS . . . [QUOTES FOLLOW LINKS] see: ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AFFIRMATION APPLAUSE, APPRECIATION APPROVAL CARING CHARITY COMFORT COMPASSION COMPLIMENTS CONCERN CONSIDERATE (ON) DOING GOOD ENCOURAGEMENT FAVORS FORGIVENESS GENEROSITY GIFTS & GIVING GOOD DEEDS GOODNESS & GOODWILL GREETINGS HELPING HUMANITARIANISM LIGHT LOVE MAKING A DIFFERENCE MERCY PHILANTHROPY PRAISE RECOGNITION SACRIFICE THOUGHTFULNESS VOLUNTEERING Kindness effects more than severity. --Ζsop (c.620 B.C.c.560 B.C.) (Thought to be a legendary figure.) _Ζsop's Fables_ "The Wind and the Sun" - Abraham Lincoln and his law partner, William Herndon, were arguing the question of whether or not any person ever performs a completely unselfish act. They were riding together through the country and came upon a pig caught in a rail fence. Herndon pretended not to see the animal and passed on by. But Lincoln stopped, got down and waded through a muddy ditch, pulled the rails apart and released the pig. Herndon pointed triumphantly to Lincoln's muddy shoes and spattered trousers, saying, "You see now I am right. Men are capable of performing unselfish deeds." "Oh no," replied Lincoln, "if I had left that pig in the fence, I would have worried about him all night. I would have been so busy wondering if someone had rescued him, or if he was still held between those rails, that I would have lost my sleep. For my own peace of mind, I had to rescue the animal. So, you see, I was merely being selfish." --Charles Livingston Allen (19132005) American minister. _The Greatest of These is Love_ [1986], "Love Overcomes Destructive Emotions" - I began my sales career in my early 20s as a very shy young woman. It was difficult for me to ask for sales--until someone convinced me that it is every bit as honorable to sell as it is to buy. My advice to salesmen is this: pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, "Make me feel important." Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life. --Mary Kay Ash (19182001) American businesswoman and founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics. - Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. --Bible "Hebrews" 13:2 NIV The highest exercise of charity is charity towards the uncharitable. --Joseph Stevens Buckminster (17841812) American Unitarian preacher. 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. --Leo [Felice Leonardo] Buscaglia (19251998) American professor and author of inspirational books. Truth is generally kindness, but where the two diverge and collide, kindness should override truth. --Samuel Butler (18351902) English novelist, essayist, and critic. You can get a lot more done with a kind word and a gun, than with a kind word alone. --Al (Alphonse Gabriel) Capone (18991947) American gangster. The quotation is apocryphal according to William Safire in _No Uncertain Terms_, p. 16 [2004]. How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these. --George Washington Carver (18641943) American agricultural chemist and agronomist. When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason had left them. --Willa Sibert Cather (18731947) American novelist. _My Mortal Enemy_, pt. I, ch. 6 [1926] Kindness is produced by kindness. --Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BC) Roman orator and statesman. The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions the little soon forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the countless other infinitessimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling. --Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834) English poet, critic, and philosopher. _The Friend_ [1828] Act with kindness, but do not expect gratitude. --Confucius (551479 B.C.) K'ung Ch'iu, Chinese philosopher. Oh, the comfort the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. --Dinah Mulock Craik (18261887) English writer and poet. _A Life for a Life_, ch. 16 [1859] The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom. --Clarence Darrow (18571938) American lawyer. It's pleasant to hear these nice words while I'm still alive. I'd rather have the taffy than the epitaphy. --Chauncey Depew (18341928) American orator, politician, and railroad president. If I can stop one Heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain If I can ease one Life the Aching Or cool one Pain. Or help one fainting Robin Unto his Nest again I shall not live in vain. --Emily Dickinson (18301886) American poet. "If I can stop one heart from breaking", written in 1864; in "Poems, First Series" [1890]. The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own. --Benjamin Disraeli (18041881) British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 18741880]. No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves. --Amelia Earhart (18971937) American aviator who disappeared in a flight over the Pacific Ocean. When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity. --George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] (18191880) English novelist. You can never do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. In Edward R. Drachman _You Decide!: Controversial Global Issues_, p. 168 [2003]. ^^ I want to tell you a story... The scene is Farmer's Market -- the famed tourist mecca of Los Angeles. It's located but yards from the facility they call, "CBS Television City in Hollywood"...which, of course, is not in Hollywood but at least is very close. Farmer's Market is a quaint collection of bungalow stores, produce stalls, and little stands where one can buy darn near anything edible one wishes to devour. You buy your pizza slice or sandwich or Chinese food or whatever at one of umpteen counters, then carry it on a tray to an open-air table for consumption. During the summer or on weekends, the place is full of families and tourists and Japanese tour groups. But this was a winter weekday, not long before Christmas, and the crowd was mostly older folks, dawdling over coffee and danish. For most of them, it's a good place to get a donut or a taco, to sit and read the paper. For me, it's a good place to get out of the house and grab something to eat. I arrived, headed for my favorite barbecue stand and, en route, noticed that Mel Torme, was seated at one of the tables. Mel Torme. My favorite singer. Just sitting there, sipping a cup of coffee, munching on an English Muffin, reading The New York Times. Mel Torme. I had never met Mel Torme. Alas, I still haven't and now I never will. He looked like he was engrossed in the paper that day so I didn't stop and say, "Excuse me, I just wanted to tell you how much I've enjoyed all your records." I wish I had. Instead, I continued over to the BBQ place, got myself a chicken sandwich, and settled down at a table to consume it. I was about halfway through when four Christmas carolers strolled by, singing "Let It Snow," a cappella. They were young adults with strong, fine voices and they were all clad in splendid Victorian garb. The Market had hired them (I assume) to stroll about and sing for the diners -- a little touch of the holidays. "Let It Snow" concluded not far from me to polite applause from all within earshot. I waved the leader of the chorale over and directed his attention to Mr. Torme, seated about twenty yards from me. "That's Mel Torme, down there. Do you know who he is?" The singer was about 25 so it didn't horrify me that he said, "No." I asked, "Do you know 'The Christmas Song?'" Again, a "No." I said, "That's the one that starts, 'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...'" "Oh, yes," the caroler chirped. "Is that what it's called? ' The Christmas Song?'" "That's the name," I explained. "And that man wrote it." The singer thanked me, returned to his group for a brief huddle...and then they strolled down towards Mel Torme,. I ditched the rest of my sandwich and followed, a few steps behind. As they reached their quarry, they began singing, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." directly to him. A big smile formed on Mel Torme's face -- and it wasn't the only one around. Most of those sitting at nearby tables knew who he was and many seemed aware of the significance of singing that song to him. For those who didn't, there was a sudden flurry of whispers: "That's Mel Torme,...he wrote that..." As the choir reached the last chorus or two of the song, Mel got to his feet and made a little gesture that meant, "Let me sing one chorus solo." The carolers -- all still apparently unaware they were in the presence of one of the world's great singers -- looked a bit uncomfortable. I'd bet at least a couple were thinking, "Oh, no... the little fat guy wants to sing." But they stopped and the little fat guy started to sing...and, of course, out came this beautiful, melodic, perfectly-on-pitch voice. The look on the face of the singer I'd briefed was amazed at first...then properly impressed. On Mr. Torme's signal, they all joined in on the final lines: "Although it's been said, many times, many ways...Merry Christmas to you..." Big smiles all around. And not just from them. I looked and at all the tables surrounding the impromptu performance, I saw huge grins of delight..., which segued, as the song ended, into a huge burst of applause. The whole tune only lasted about two minutes but I doubt anyone who was there will ever forget it. I have witnessed a number of thrilling "show business" moments -- those incidents, far and few between, where all the little hairs on your epidermis snap to attention and tingle with joy. Usually, these occur on a screen or stage. I hadn't expected to experience one next to a falafel stand -- but I did. Torme thanked the harmonizers for the serenade and one of the women said, "You really wrote that?" He nodded. "A wonderful songwriter named Bob Wells and I wrote that...and, get this -- we did it on the hottest day of the year in July. It was a way to cool down." Then the gent I'd briefed said, "You know, you're not a bad singer." He actually said that to Mel Torme,. Mel chuckled. He realized that these four young folks hadn't the velvet-foggiest notion who he was, above and beyond the fact that he'd worked on that classic carol. "Well," he said. "I've actually made a few records in my day..." "Really?" the other man asked. "How many?" Torme smiled and said, "Ninety." --Mark Evanier (1952 ) American writer. ^^ ^ Nathaniel Hawthorne (18041964) American novelist. In March 1864, an ill Hawthorne was traveling with his old friend and publisher James Ticknor. Driving through Philadelphia, the bad weather turned even colder and rainier. Ticknor took off his coat and put it around Hawthorne's shoulders to protect him. It helped Hawthorne -- but Ticknor caught a severe case of pneumonia and died a few days later. --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it . . . write it in the sand near the water's edge. --Napoleon Hill (18831970) American journalist, lawyer, and author of self-help books. - During my second month of nursing school, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until I read the last one: 'What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?' Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. 'Absolutely,' said the professor. 'In your careers you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello'. I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy. --Joann C. Jones - Bennett Cerf tells about Fiorello La Guardia presiding over the police court.... One bitter cold day they brought a trembling old man before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. His family, he said, was starving. 'I've got to punish you,' declared La Guardia. 'The law makes no exception. I can do nothing but sentence you to a fine of ten dollars.' But the Little Flower was reaching into his pocket as he added, 'Well, here's the ten dollars to pay our fine. And now I remit the fine.' He tossed a ten-dollar bill into his famous sombrero. 'Futhermore,' he declared, 'I'm going to fine everybody in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a man has to steal bread in order to eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to this defendant!' The hat was passed and an incredulous old man, with a light of heaven in his eyes, left the courtroom with a stake of forty-seven dollars and fifty cents. --Bennett Cerf (18981971) American author, humorist, and publisher. (Fiorello La Guardia (18821947) American politician who served three terms as mayor of New York City [19331945]). - Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. --Lao-tzu (c. 6th cent. B.C.) the first philosopher of Chinese Taoism and alleged author of the _Tao-te Ching_ (Chinese: Classic of the Way of Power). - 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. --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882) American poet. - Deal with others as thou wouldst thyself be dealt by. Do nothing to thy neighbor which thou wouldst not have him do to thee hereafter. --_The Mahabharata_, c. 800 B. C. Sanskrit epic poem. One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind. --Malay Proverb Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do it without any thought of reward. Your life will never be the same again. --Og Mandino (19231996) American author and motivational speaker. We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne. --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121180) Roman emperor [161180] and Stoic philosopher. You can no longer believe that what you do does not matter. It is as if you are dancing along a beach, making footprints on the edge where the shoreline meets the sea. No one is applauding. No one sees your splendid gyrations of joy. You know full well that the tide will come and wash the marks your dance has left. Still, the dance lives on in your heart, as does the simple, clean delight of being alive. --Dawna Markova Educator and author. In introduction to _Random Acts of Kindness_ [1993]. It is not the most lovable individuals who stand more in need of lovebut the most unlovable. --Ashley Montagu [Israel Ehrenberg] (19051999) English anthropologist and humanist. 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. --Blaise Pascal (16231662) French mathematician, physicist, and moralist. - I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. --attributed to William Penn (16441718), Stephen Grellet (17731855), and others. If a civil word or two will render a man happy, he must be a wretch indeed who will not tell them to him. --William Penn (16441718) Quaker leader and advocate of religious freedom who oversaw the founding of the American Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a refuge for Quakers and other religious minorities of Europe {E.B.}. - - Not always actions show the man: we find Who does a kindness is not therefore kind. --Alexander Pope (16881744) English poet. _Moral Essays_ [17311735], "Epistle I, To Lord Cobham" [1734] Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. --Alexander Pope (16881744) English poet. _Imitations of Horace_ [1738] - The last, best fruit that comes to perfection, even in the kindliest soul, is tenderness toward the hard; forbearance toward the unforbearing; warmth of heart toward the cold; and philanthropy toward the misanthropic. --Jean Paul Richter (17631825) German novelist. To give pleasure to a single heart by a single kind act is better than a thousand head-bowings in prayer. --Sa'di [Muslih-uddin] (c. 11841291?) Iranian poet. Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate. --Albert Schweitzer (18751965) Franco-German theologian, philosopher, and mission doctor. I had rather never receive a kindness, than never bestow one. Not to return a benefit is the greater sin, but not to confer it, is the earlier. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. 65 A.D.) Roman philosopher and poet. Mankind are always happier for having been happy; so that if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it. --Sydney Smith (17711845) English clergyman and essayist. "On The Benevolent Affections" Lecture XXII of a series delivered at the Royal Institution (London) between 18041806. One evening at dinner, realizing that he had done nobody any favor since the previous night, Titus spoke these memorable words: 'My friends, I have wasted a day.' --Suetonius [Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus] (c. 69c. 122) Roman biographer and antiquarian. _"Titus"_ [c. 120] We cannot be kind to each other here for an hour; we whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a brother's shame. However we brave it out, we men are a little breed. --Alfred, Lord Tennyson (18091892) English poet. _Maud; A Monodra_ [1856] Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. --Mother Teresa (19101997) Roman Catholic nun and missionary. Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in, so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber. --William Makepeace Thackeray (18111863) English novelist. - All my life, from boyhood up, I have had the habit of reading a certain set of anecdotes, written in the quaint vein of The World's ingenious Fabulist, for the lesson they taught me and the pleasure they gave me. They lay always convenient to my hand, and whenever I thought meanly of my kind I turned to them, and they banished that sentiment; whenever I felt myself to be selfish, sordid, and ignoble I turned to them, and they told me what to do to win back my self-respect. Many times I wished that the charming anecdotes had not stopped with their happy climaxes, but had continued the pleasing history of the several benefactors and beneficiaries. This wish rose in my breast so persistently that at last I determined to satisfy it by seeking out the sequels of those anecdotes myself. So I set about it, and after great labor and tedious research accomplished my task. I will lay the result before you, giving you each anecdote in its turn, and following it with its sequel as I gathered it through my investigations. THE GRATEFUL POODLE One day a benevolent physician (who had read the books) having found a stray poodle suffering from a broken leg, conveyed the poor creature to his home, and after setting and bandaging the injured limb gave the little outcast its liberty again, and thought no more about the matter. But how great was his surprise, upon opening his door one morning, some days later, to find the grateful poodle patiently waiting there, and in its company another stray dog, one of whose legs, by some accident, had been broken. The kind physician at once relieved the distressed animal, nor did he forget to admire the inscrutable goodness and mercy of God, who had been willing to use so humble an instrument as the poor outcast poodle for the inculcating of, etc., etc., etc. SEQUEL The next morning the benevolent physician found the two dogs, beaming with gratitude, waiting at his door, and with them two other dogs-cripples. The cripples were speedily healed, and the four went their way, leaving the benevolent physician more overcome by pious wonder than ever. The day passed, the morning came. There at the door sat now the four reconstructed dogs, and with them four others requiring reconstruction. This day also passed, and another morning came; and now sixteen dogs, eight of them newly crippled, occupied the sidewalk, and the people were going around. By noon the broken legs were all set, but the pious wonder in the good physician's breast was beginning to get mixed with involuntary profanity. The sun rose once more, and exhibited thirty-two dogs, sixteen of them with broken legs, occupying the sidewalk and half of the street; the human spectators took up the rest of the room. The cries of the wounded, the songs of the healed brutes, and the comments of the onlooking citizens made great and inspiring cheer, but traffic was interrupted in that street. The good physician hired a couple of assistant surgeons and got through his benevolent work before dark, first taking the precaution to cancel his church-membership, so that he might express himself with the latitude which the case required. But some things have their limits. When once more the morning dawned, and the good physician looked out upon a massed and far-reaching multitude of clamorous and beseeching dogs, he said, "I might as well acknowledge it, I have been fooled by the books; they only tell the pretty part of the story, and then stop. Fetch me the shotgun; this thing has gone along far enough." He issued forth with his weapon, and chanced to step upon the tail of the original poodle, who promptly bit him in the leg. Now the great and good work which this poodle had been engaged in had engendered in him such a mighty and augmenting enthusiasm as to turn his weak head at last and drive him mad. A month later, when the benevolent physician lay in the death-throes of hydrophobia, he called his weeping friends about him, and said: "Beware of the books. They tell but half of the story. Whenever a poor wretch asks you for help, and you feel a doubt as to what result may flow from your benevolence, give yourself the benefit of the doubt and kill the applicant." And so saying he turned his face to the wall and gave up the ghost. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. That is the principal difference between a dog and a man. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Pudd'nhead Wilson_ [1894] "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" Ch. 16 - So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths while just the act of being kind is all the world needs. --Ella Wheeler Wilcox (18501919) American author and poet. "The World's Need" In Kate Louise Roberts _Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations_, p. 665 [1922]. - I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. --Tennessee Williams [Thomas Lanier Williams] (19111983) American dramatist. (Blanche DuBois' final words, in "A Streetcar Named Desire" [1947].) & see: You cannot imagine the kindness I've received at the hands of perfect strangers. --W. Somerset Maugham (18741965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. _The Narrow Corner_, ch. 15 [1932] - That best portion of a good man's life. His little, nameless, unremembered, acts of kindness and of love. --William Wordsworth (17701850) English poet. "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" [1798] Be good, be kind, be humane, and charitable; love your fellows; console the afflicted; pardon those who have done you wrong. --Zoroaster (c. 628 B.C.c. 551 B.C.) Iranian religious reformer and founder of Zoroastrianism. - Kind thoughts are rarer than either kind words or kind deeds. They imply a great deal of thinking about others. This in itself is rare. But they also imply a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. This is rarer still. --unknown In _Bible Review_, p. 551 (ed. H.E. Butler) [1923]. - Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life. --anon. ----- benignant (adj.) 1. Kind; gracious. 2. Beneficial; favorable. end page | KARMA - KENTUCKY | KINDNESS | KILL - KU KLUX KLAN | KNOWLEDGE | LABELS - LAS VEGAS | LANGUAGE | LATIN - LAUGHTER | LAW (THE) - LAWYERS | LAZINESS - LEGACIES | LEARNING | LEISURE - LIBERALS | LIBERTY - LIES | LIFE | LIFESTYLE - LIMITATIONS | LINCOLN (ABRAHAM) - LITTERING | LIVE - LONDON | LONELINESS - LOUISIANA | LOVE - PAGE 1 (A-L) | LOVE - PAGE 2 (M-Z) | LOVE & MARRIAGE - LYNCHING | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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