C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Kindness
Kind words are the music of the world.
Beauty lives with kindness.
Kindness is virtue itself.
Heaven in sunshine will requite the kind.
Kindness gives birth to kindness.
Kindness nobler ever than revenge.
A small unkindness as a great offence.
How wise must one be to be always kind.
Kindness, the poetry of the heart.
Paradise is open to all kind hearts.
There is a vast deal of vital air in loving words.
Kindness which is not inexhaustible does not deserve the name.
He had a face like a benediction.
Kindness is the only charm permitted to the aged; it is the coquetry of white hairs.
Kindness has converted more sinners than either zeal, eloquence, or learning.
Wherever there is a human being there is an opportunity for a kindness.
Wise sayings often fall on barren ground; but a kind word is never thrown away.
If what must be given is given willingly the kindness is doubled.
Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.
An effort made for the happiness of others lifts us above ourselves.
Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood.
You may ride us with one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, ere with spur we heat an acre.
The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.
There is no beautifier of complexion or form or behavior like the wish to scatter joy, and not pain, around us.
There is no dearth of kindness in this world of ours; only in our blindness we gather thorns for flowers.
I have sped by land and sea, and mingled with much people, but never yet could find a spot unsunned by human kindness.
Gentle feelings produce profoundly beneficial effects upon stern natures. It is the spring rain which melts the ice-covering of the earth, and causes it to open to the beams of heaven.
Ministers who threaten death and destruction employ weapons of weakness. Argument and kindness are alone effectual, flavored by the principles of Divine love.
A more glorious victory cannot be gained over another man than this, that when the injury began on his part, the kindness should begin on ours.
How easy it is for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around him; and how truly is a kind heart a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity to freshen into smiles!
Oppose kindness to perverseness. The heavy sword will not cut soft silk; by using sweet words and gentleness you may lead an elephant with a hair.
Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindnesses and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart, and secure comfort.
The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. “Win hearts,” said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, “and you have all men’s hearts and purses.”
The happiness of life may be greatly increased by small courtesies in which there is no parade, whose voice is too still to tease, and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate looks, and little kind acts of attention.
He who confers a favor should at once forget it, if he is not to show a sordid ungenerous spirit. To remind a man of a kindness conferred on him, and to talk of it, is little different from reproach.
Always say a kind word if you can, if only that it may come in, perhaps, with singular opportuneness, entering some mournful man’s darkened room, like a beautiful firefly, whose happy circumvolutions he cannot but watch, forgetting his many troubles.
We may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindness around us at so little expense. Some of them will inevitably fall on good ground, and grow up into benevolence in the minds of others; and all of them will bear fruit of happiness in the bosom whence they spring.
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.
In the intercourse of social life, it is by little acts of watchful kindness recurring daily and hourly,—and opportunities of doing kindnesses if sought for are forever starting up,—it is by words, by tones, by gestures, by looks, that affection is won and preserved. He who neglects these trifles, yet boasts that, whenever a great sacrifice is called for, he shall be ready to make it, will rarely be loved. The likelihood is, he will not make it; and if he does, it will be much rather for his own sake than for his neighbor’s.
Everyone of us knows how painful it is to be called by malicious names, to have his character undermined by false insinuations, to be overreached in a bargain, to be neglected by those who rise in life, to be thrust on one side by those who have stronger wills and stouter hearts. Everyone knows, also, the pleasure of receiving a kind look, a warm greeting, a hand held out to help in distress, a difficulty solved, a higher hope revealed for this world or the next. By that pain and by that pleasure let us judge what we should do to others.