stuff tagged with "kindness"

Be Kind. Bring Joy. Repeat.

— "Weird Al" Yankovic

For most of my life, I would have rolled my eyes at a lot of the language of kindness or self-empathy as insufferably fuzzy-minded, a kind of indulgence that distracts from more meaningful work. But further into adulthood, having grown, and endured loss, and been with loved ones and friends as they've grieved and struggled and been through all the countless small indignities that life inflicts on us all, I realize that it's actually pretty important to extend kindness to oneself.

— Anil Dash

To know someone's pain is to share in it. And to share in it is to relieve some of it.

— Nnedi Okorafor

What I want is so simple I almost can't say it--elementary kindness. Enough to eat. Enough to go around. The possibility that kids may grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That's about it.

— Barbara Kingsolver

My pillars are empathy, curiosity, and kindness, and much else flows from that.

— Ed Yong

The best portion of a good man's life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.

— William Wordsworth, "Lyrical Ballads"

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

— Tara Brach

The problem in this country is not that we fail to 'get along' with people, parties, and politics with which we disagree. The problem is that we are horrific at justly loving the people, places, and politics we purport to love.

— Kiese Laymon

I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.

— Abraham Lincoln

I want to do important work, I said. Then smile at people you meet, she said & play with dogs & tuck a blanket around someone who falls asleep. That's not what I meant, I said. Of course you did, she said. You just had a smaller idea of important.

— Kai

Keep my anger from becoming meanness. Keep my sorrow from collapsing into self-pity. Keep my heart soft enough to keep breaking. Keep my anger turned towards justice, not cruelty. Remind me that all of this, every bit of it; is for love. Keep me fiercely kind.

— Laura Jean Truman

Be kind to your shadow.

— Rebecca Lawless

Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true: the kindest person in the room is often the smartest.

— J.B. Pritzker

We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.

— Charlie Chaplin

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

— Simone Weil

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

— Dalai Lama