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Kindness Quotes

The Dalai Lama and Ali, the fourth caliph, are at the top, with Shakespeare, Alice Bailey and Amit Ray. The sourced lines are not especially sweet. Oscar Wilde, in The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891), thought it immoral to use private property to relieve the evils that private property causes, and Disraeli, in Contarini Fleming (1832), says never to apologize for showing feeling, since you are apologizing for truth.

The passage that begins “I expect to pass through this world but once” is credited to Stephen Grellet and marked disputed. The notes show that it was first printed in a June 1869 magazine, writing of an unnamed Quaker. Two jokes are flagged as well: the best government being a benevolent tyranny tempered by assassination (Voltaire) and a kind word with a gun going farther than a kind word alone (Al Capone).

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"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

Charles Dickens

The heart of an Arhat is like the heart of Cosmos. The heart of an Arhat is like the fire of the Sun. Eternity and the motion of Cosmos fill the heart of the Arhat. Maitreya is coming, radiant with all fires. His Heart flames with compassion for destitute humanity.

Helena Roerich

Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Jesus

When a member of our physical body is diseased and the whole body has to labor to restore it to health, we do not despise this diseased member or hold it under obligation because it needs all this assistance.

John Calvin

...hidden from all but the eye of God, and of rare benevolence, the minister of God.

Thomas Carlyle

At one time the benevolent affections embrace merely the family, soon the circle expanding includes first a class, then a nation, then a coalition of nations, then all humanity, and finally, its influence is felt in the dealings of man with the animal world. In each of these stages a standard is formed, different from that of the preceding stage, but in each case the same tendency is recognised as virtue.

William Edward Hartpole Lecky A History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne (1869)

To enlarge the sphere of social happiness is worthy of the benevolent design of a Masonic institution; and it is most fervently to be wished, that the conduct of every member of the fraternity, as well as those publications, that discover the principles which actuate them, may tend to convince mankind that the grand object of Masonry is to promote the happiness of the human race.

George Washington

In strange and uncertain times such as those we are living in, sometimes a reasonable person might despair. But hope is unreasonable and love is greater even than this. May we trust the inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse.

Robert Fripp

Oh! while we would have our young sisters imitate, as they cannot fail to love, the conduct of Ruth, will not their elders do well to ponder on, and imitate, the tenderness of Naomi? […] Would we have our daughters Ruths, we must be Naomis.

Grace Aguilar

Courtesy will draw benevolence.

Ali

Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies — "God damn it, you've got to be kind."

Kurt Vonnegut God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.

Albert Einstein

The impulse of power is to turn every variable into a constant, and give to commands the inexorableness and relentlessness of laws of nature. Hence absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.

Eric Hoffer The Ordeal of Change (1963)

Christ takes on the appearance of each of the poor and assimilates Himself to all of them so that no one who believes in Him will be arrogant towards his fellow being. On the contrary, he will look on his fellow being and his neighbor as his God, regarding himself as least of all in comparison just as much with his neighbor as with his Creator, honoring his neighbor as if he were his Creator, and exhausting his all in his service, just as Christ our God poured out His blood for our salvation.

Symeon the New Theologian

One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.

Simone de Beauvoir The Coming of Age (1970)

Implementing a compassionate perspective that embraces all life is at the heart of being vegan.

Joanne Stepaniak Being Vegan (2000)

All is well, practice kindness, heaven is nigh.

Jack Kerouac Visions of Gerard (1963)

Compassion is the desire that moves the individual self to widen the scope of its self-concern to embrace the whole of the universal self.

Arnold J. Toynbee The Toynbee-Ikeda Dialogue: Man Himself Must Choose (1976)

The month of Ramadan carries enduring moral values: humanity, compassion, mercy.

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev Kassym-Jomart Tokayev (2022)

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

Simone Weil

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