Kindness quotes

Kindness

2.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

2.3K quotes

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Kindness quotes (page 38 of 116)

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Samuel Johnson Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic
Kindness

"It is not indeed certain, that the most refined caution will find a proper time for bringing a man to the knowledge of his own failing, or the most zealous benevolence reconcile him to that judgment by which they are detected; but he who endeavours only the happiness of him whom he reproves will always have either the satisfaction of obtaining or deserving kindness; if he succeeds, he benefits his friend; and if he fails, he has at least the consciousness that he suffers for only doing well."

Men Kindness Advice
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Viola Davis Actress, Producer
Kindness

"I think that's why August [Wilson] named her Rose [in "Fences"]; I really do. She's a rose in her sweetness and her kindness and in everything else, even her anger towards the end."

Thinking Kindness August
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Kindness

"Dedication: My thanks to the people who showed me that opera was stranger than I could imagine. I can best repay their kindness by not mentioning their names here."

Names Kindness Dedication
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Kindness

"The Librarian was not familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical. You knew where you were with kindness, especially if you were holding a pie it had just given you."

Hands Kindness Pie
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Vladimir Nabokov Novelist
Kindness

"There are gentle souls who would pronounce Lolita meaningless because it does not teach them anything. I am neither a reader nor a writer of didactic fiction...For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm."

Art Soul Kindness
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Thomas Jefferson Politician, Founding Father
Kindness

"we defer therefore till this time twelve month to avail ourselves of the instruction of that place, and particularly of your kindness in the two branches of Botany and Natural history to which we wish him particularly to apply."

Two Kindness Educational
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Thomas Jefferson Politician, Founding Father
Kindness

"When a uniform exercise of kindness to prisoners on our part has been returned by as uniform severity on the part of our enemies,you must excuse me for saying it is high time, by other lessons, to teach respect to the dictates of humanity; in such a case, retaliation becomes an act of benevolence."

Exercise Humanity Kindness
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Torquil Campbell Musician
Kindness

"I think people are naturally good, I see it every day. Look at this restaurant. No one's causing anybody any trouble in here. We're all sitting, respecting each other's space, we're keeping our voices down, we're saying "please" and "thank you" - those are acts of generosity that we commit on a second by second basis that we don't give ourselves enough credit for. There's a lot of kindness in this world, we're just such vain creatures; our vanity can be used against us so easily. We're like dogs, hairless dogs."

Thinking Dog Kindness
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Seneca the Younger Philosopher, Statesman
Kindness

"Human nature is so constituted that insults sink deeper than kindnesses; the remembrance of the latter soon passes away, while that of the former is treasured in the memory."

Memories Kindness Remembrance
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Seneca the Younger Philosopher, Statesman
Kindness

"The things which we hold in our hands, which we see with our eyes, and which our avarice hugs, are transitory, they may be taken from us by ill luck or by violence; but a kindness lasts even after the loss of that by means of which it was bestowed; for it is a good deed, which no violence can undo."

Mean Taken Kindness
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Seneca the Younger Philosopher, Statesman
Kindness

"It is a common thing to screw up justice to the pitch of an injury. A man may be over-righteous, and why not over-grateful, too? There is a mischievous excess that borders so close upon ingratitude that it is no easy matter to distinguish the one from the other; but, in regard that there is good-will in the bottom of it, however distempered; for it is effectually but kindness out of the wits."

Men Kindness Grateful
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Seth Godin Author, Entrepreneur
Kindness

"We're often in a hurry to finish. Or in a hurry to close a sale. What happens when we adopt the posture of being in a hurry to be generous? With resources or insight or access or kindness... It's an interesting sort of impatience."

Interesting Kindness Impatience
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Simon Sinek Author, Motivational Speaker
Kindness

"It is a luxury to put our interests first. It is an honor to put the interests of others before our own."

Kindness Honor Luxury
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Sophocles Playwright, Philosopher
Kindness

"For kindness begets kindness evermore, But he from whose mind fades the memory Of benefits, noble is he no more."

Mind Kindness Noble
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Sri Chinmoy Spiritual Teacher, Poet, Musician
Kindness

"Like kindness, a smile from the heart not only purifies the human mind but also illumines the human heart."

Heart Mind Kindness
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Robert Louis Stevenson Author, Poet
Kindness

"To be honest, to be kind-to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends but these without capitulation-above all, on the same grim condition to keep friends with himself-here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy."

Life Kindness Honesty
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Robert Louis Stevenson Author, Poet
Kindness

"Death is given in a kiss; the dearest kindnesses are fatal; and into this life, where one thing preys upon another, the child too often makes its entrance from the mother's corpse."

Mother Death Kindness
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Robert Louis Stevenson Author, Poet
Kindness

"It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit."

Thinking Looks Kindness
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