Quotes & Sayings About Loving Kindness

You may have seen people praying to an image as if it had special power. Perhaps they're wishing for the well-being of their family, for material prosperity, or to recover from illness. But this way of practicing faith only leads to a dead end. Buddha images should serve as inspirations to cultivate the infinite loving kindness latent in the buddha within us. — Shinjo Ito

Though Destiny a hundred times waylays you,in the end it pitches a tent for you in Heaven.
It is God's loving kindness to terrify you,in order to lead you to His Kingdom of safety. — Rumi

If you can't pass on a little loving-kindness in this world, you might as well be a gopher in a hole. — Ross Macdonald

Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things. — Thomas Merton

Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will assuredly injure no one, do harm to no one, encroach on no man's rights; he will rather have regard for every one, forgive every one, help every one as far as he can, and all his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Have we ever thought to consider that the need to be loved grows because of its absence, but that love also grows because of its presence? And does this not speak to the power of love? — Craig D. Lounsbrough

To combat hatred directed toward a person, a Buddhist cultivates loving kindness toward that person. — Dalai Lama

Loving-kindness and compassion are the basis for wise, powerful, sometimes gentle, and sometimes fierce actions that can really make a difference - in our own lives and those of others. — Sharon Salzberg

Our problems are not solved by physical force, by hatred, by warOur problems are solved by loving kindness by gentleness, by joy — Gautama Buddha

Send the light of your own loving ahead of you. When you get there, the loving will have prepared a place for you. Be kind, gentle, and enjoy the journey. — Peter McWilliams

The way you treat people who are in no position to help you, further you, or benefit you reveals the true state of your heart. — Mandy Hale

It doesn't kill you to be nice, kind, loving, caring and respectful. Try it! — Lily Amis

Jesus wants us to understand four things: First, that He Himself is our ground, the soil from which we grow, the foundation on which we are built. Second, that He guards us and keeps us safe when we are in the midst of sin, when our own choices allow our enemies to surround us, when we do not even realize our own need. Third, that He guards us with care and kindness, showing us where we have gone astray. And fourth, that His presence is always with us, and His loving gaze never wavers, for He wants us to turn back to Him and become united with Him in love, as He is with us. When — Julian Of Norwich

Practicing loving kindness meditation is like digging deep into the ground until we reach the purest water. We look deeply into ourselves until insight arises and our love flows to the surface. Joy and happiness radiate from our eyes, and everyone around us benefits from our smile and our presence. If we take good care of ourselves, we help everyone. We stop being a source of suffering to the world, and we become a reservoir of joy and freshness. Here and there are people who know how to take good care of themselves, who live joyfully and happily. They are our strongest support. Whatever they do, they do for everyone. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Your good deeds is an act of love. — Lailah Gifty Akita

What a beautiful world God, in His loving kindness to His creatures, has given us! What a shame that men endowed with reason and knowledge of right should mar His gifts ... — Robert E.Lee

Wholehearted acceptance is a basic element of love, starting with love for ourselves, and a gateway to joy. Through the practices of loving kindness and self-compassion, we can learn to love our flawed and imperfect selves. And in those moments of vulnerability, we open our hearts to connect with each other, as well. We are not perfect, but we are enough. — Sharon Salzberg

Everything is material for the seed of happiness, if you look into it with inquisitiveness and curiosity. The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment. There always is the potential to create an environment of blame -or one that is conducive to loving-kindness. — Pema Chodron

The Church is the only entity equipped to penetrate to the spiritual roots of our moral illnesses. We are to call out the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the economy, enlisting the weapons of love, joy, patience, goodness, kindness and self-control, which are the foundation of true freedom. Many Christian teachers rightly point out that our society's willingness to take on the slavery of debt in exchange for stuff is an expression of the deep emptiness that people are seeking to fill within themselves. One of the most powerful aspects of the Gospel is that this emptiness can only be filled by the loving reconnection with the Father that Jesus offers. For this reason, it is less critical that we condemn the world's decadence than that we make an appeal to human desire and how it is genuinely fulfilled. — Stephen K. De Silva

In meditation we discover our inherent restlessness. Sometimes we get up and leave. Sometimes we sit there but our bodies wiggle and squirm and our minds go far away. This can be so uncomfortable that we feel's it's impossible to stay. Yet this feeling can teach us not just about ourselves but what it is to be human ... we really don't want to stay with the nakedness of our present experience. It goes against the grain to stay present. These are the times when only gentleness and a sense of humor can give us the strength to settle down ... so whenever we wander off, we gently encourage ourselves to "stay" and settle down. Are we experiencing restlessness? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What's for lunch? Stay! I can't stand this another minute! Stay!" — Pema Chodron

There is no such thing as tough love. Love is kind, love is compassionate, love is tender. — Heather Wolf

Father of mercy and God of all consolation, graciously look upon me and impart to me the blessing which flows from this holy Sacrament. Overshadow me with Your loving kindness, and let this divine Mystery bear fruit in me. — Saint Blaise

Loving-kindness is required, but a follower of Christ-just like the Master-will be firm in the truth. — Dallin H. Oaks

I have had prayers answered - most strangely so sometimes - but I think our Heavenly Father's loving-kindness has been even more evident in what He has refused me. — Lewis Carroll

For an aspiring bodhisattva, the essential practice is to cultivate maitri, or loving-kindness. — Pema Chodron

If only you could be yourself." they shouted. So, she did. "You are not like me or anyone I have met!" they screamed. So, she blended. "You are so fake." they laughed. So, the caterpillar retreated to her cocoon to find peace alone. One day, they came to find her gone. She left a message, "God knew I was different and gave me these beautiful wings because he meant for me to fly. You see ... I wasn't meant to be like you. I was meant to be me
better. — Shannon L. Alder

The way to peace, harmony and balance for the planet is through the loving kindness of each individual heart. — Laurence Overmire

A man of worth is a man that sees the worth in others more than himself. — Shannon L. Alder

Loss of safe harbor, refuge of grace, where loving-kindness rues one day like another. — B.G. Brainard

Women are soft, loving, and kind. Do not mistake softness and kindness as weakness. Water is soft, but stone cannot break the water. However, water can break the stone. — Debasish Mridha

I hear my father; I need never fear.
I hear my mother; I shall never be lonely, or want for love.
When I am hungry it is they who provide for me; when I am in dismay, it is they who fill me with comfort.
When I am astonished or bewildered, it is they who make the weak ground firm beneath my soul: it is in them that I put my trust.
When I am sick it is they who send for the doctor; when I am well and happy, it is in their eyes that I know best that I am loved; and it is towards the shining of their smiles that I lift up my heart and in their laughter that I know my best delight.
I hear my father and my mother and they are my giants, my king and my queen, beside whom there are not others so wise or worthy or honorable or brave or beautiful in this world.
I need never fear: nor ever shall I lack for loving-kindness. — James Agee

Jesus offers unconditional grace; we are to offer unconditional grace. The mercy of Christ preceded our mistakes; our mercy must precede the mistakes of others. Those in the circle of Christ had no doubt of his love; those in our circles should have no doubts about ours. What does it mean to have a heart like his? It means to kneel as Jesus knelt, touching the grimy parts of the people we are stuck with and washing away their unkindnesses with kindness. Or as Paul wrote, "Be kind and loving to each other, and forgive each other just as God forgave you in Christ" (Eph. 4:32). — Max Lucado

The way of loving kindness is what is to be accepted. Love! The benefit is clear. Rage, hate are the way of chaos and darkness - to be rejected. — Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Loving-kindness is the better part of goodness. — W. Somerset Maugham

A spiritual retreat is medicine for soul starvation. Through silence, solitary practice, and simple living, we begin to fill the empty reservoir. This lifts the veils, dissolves the masks, and creates space within for the feelings of forgiveness, compassion, and loving kindness that are so often blocked. — David A. Cooper

Mean girls go far in high school. Kind women go far in LIFE. — Mandy Hale

Be wise. Treat yourself, your mind, sympathetically, with loving kindness. If you are gentle with yourself, you will become gentle with others. — Thubten Yeshe

THE basic ground of compassionate action is the importance of working with rather than struggling against, and what I mean by that is working with your own unwanted, unacceptable stuff, so that when the unacceptable and unwanted appears out there, you relate to it based on having worked with loving-kindness for yourself. — Pema Chodron

If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense. — C.S. Lewis

Liberated from the error of pagan tradition through the benevolence and loving kindness of the good God with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the operation of the Holy Spirit, I was reared from the very beginning by Christian parents. From them I learned even in babyhood the Holy Scriptures which led me to a knowledge of the truth. — Saint Basil

Rav Hisda nodded. "Despite the dangers, people continue to travel, often for long distances. This is what you would inscribe on an amulet for your brother to protect him on a journey.

"May it be Your will, Adonai Savaot, that You conduct Tachlifa bar Haviva in peace, direct his footsteps in peace, and uphold him in peace. Deliver him from the hand of every foe and ambush along the way. Send blessing on his handiwork and grant him grace, loving-kindness, and mercy in Your eyes and in the eyes of all who behold Tachlifa bar Haviva. Blessed are You, Adonai, who harkens unto prayer. Amen. Amen. Selah. — Maggie Anton

I love you sounds best spoken in quiet acts of kindness. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The formal practice of loving-kindness or maitri has seven stages. We begin by engendering loving-kindness for ourselves and then expand it at out own pace to include loved ones, friends, "neutral" persons, those who irritate us, all of the above as a group, and finally, all beings throughout time and space. We gradually widen the circle of loving-kindness. — Pema Chodron

God punishing people for being good. God loving some people more than others. God asking fathers to kill their kids as proof of their faith. God giving kings special powers so they can slaughter entire nations. God not jumping in when His own kid get murdered. That's some crazy shit If that's the God they want me to believe in, no thank you. Ship me off to Hell right now so I can toss back a cold one with the zillion other people God never tortured with His infinite kindness. — Scott Blagden

It is only when we can look inside and learn to love deeply that which resembles uncut gravel within ourselves that we will be blessed to find it filled with diamonds — Alice Nicholls

Wave after wave of trial rolled over us; but at the end of the year some of us were constrained to confess, that we had learned more of the loving-kindness of the Lord than in any previous year of our lives. — Hudson Taylor

Monks, even if bandits were to savagely sever you, limb by limb, with a double-handled saw, even then, whoever of you harbors ill will at heart would not be upholding my Teaching. Monks, even in such a situation you should train yourselves thus: 'Neither shall our minds be affected by this, nor for this matter shall we give vent to evil words, but we shall remain full of concern and pity, with a mind of love, and we shall not give in to hatred. On the contrary, we shall live projecting thoughts of universal love to those very persons, making them as well as the whole world the object of our thoughts of universal love - thoughts that have grown great, exalted and measureless. We shall dwell radiating these thoughts which are void of hostility and ill will.' It is in this way, monks, that you should train yourselves. — Gautama Buddha

We can all benefit by learning to express and meet out physical needs in a loving, caressing and compassionate way — David Bresler

It's not just philosophy, not just words; it's knowing how the mind functions; only then can you develop loving-kindness; only then can you become a spiritual person. — Thubten Yeshe

Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not be an endless preoccupation. You must dwell also on the glad remembrance of God's loving-kindness; otherwise, sadness will harden the heart and lead it more deeply into despair. — Saint Bernard

You only tasted the water. I tasted the gift. The water was simply the container for an act of loving-kindness and nothing could be sweeter. — Michael Josephson

Life is as precious to us as it is for an animal. An animal is as loving, caring, and kind to her children as we are. She might not be able to tell us but she can express it through her eyes and expressions. She feels joy and happiness. She is helpless in our cruel hands and vulnerable to our vicious greed. Let us be kind to animals. Let us learn to feel their pain. Can we kill a helpless baby to feed our greed? Then how can we kill helpless animal friends that can't talk? Often we kill just for fun. How funny would it be if an animal killed a human just for fun? Let us be kind to animals as much as possible. I know we can. It is easier to love an animal than a human being. If you love an animal, it will rarely hurt you. Let us practice kindness and compassion to animals so that we may create a peaceful world. — Debasish Mridha

The roaring thunder of the law and the fear of the terror of judgment are both used to bring us to Christ, but the final victory culminating in our salvation is won through God's loving-kindness. — Charles Spurgeon

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve. — Joseph Joubert

When people are kind, rational, generous and loving..
Be grateful, appreciate it and make the most of it at that time..
Because it is not necessarily the normal/real way of things at all..
Reason, generosity, kindness & love are rare resources in this world.. — Abha Maryada Banerjee

Change that does not lead to liberation from fear, greed and delusion is not wholesome. Furthermore, any change that does not yield more compassion and loving-kindness for yourself and others is a waste of precious life energy. — Phillip Moffitt

Without loving-kindness, staying in pain is just warfare. — Pema Chodron

So may there be grace and kindness, gentleness and love in our hearts, especially for the ones who we believe are profoundly wrong. The Good News is proclaimed when we love each other. I pray for unity beyond conformity, because loving-kindness preaches the gospel more beautifully and truthfully than any satirical blog post or point-by-point dismantling of another disciple's reputation and teaching. — Sarah Bessey

Often we withhold our affections, waiting first for love to be extended to us. The irony is that we are loved for loving. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Touched by an act of kindness, be kind to others. — Lailah Gifty Akita

This is not a letter but my arms about you for a brief moment. — Katherine Mansfield

We can have skills training in mindfulness so that we are using our attention to perceive something in the present moment. This perception is not so latent by fears or projections into the future, or old habits, and then I can actually stir loving-kindness or compassion in skills training too, which can be sort of provocative, I found. — Sharon Salzberg

I love everyone and everything. I belong to everyone and everything. I am a citizen of this world. I created my own universe. I don't want to belong to an ideology or belief system. I don't want to be imprisoned by someone else's conforming thoughts. I only accept that which is beautiful, loving, and kind. I want to belong to this universe until I am gone. We are one; we are kin. So my religion is love and kindness is my prayer. Altruism is my path. Peace is my palace where I dwell with humility and happiness. — Debasish Mridha

It is for people we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms: with our friends, our lovers, our children we are exacting and would rather see. them suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes. If God is Love, He is, by definition something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records that though He has often rebuded us, condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexcusable sense. — C.S. Lewis

We all are so deeply interconnected; we have no option but to love all. Be kind and do good for any one and that will be reflected. The ripples of the kind heart are the highest blessings of the Universe. — Amit Ray

The many troubles in your household will tend to your edification, if you strive to bear them all in gentleness, patience, and kindness. Keep this ever before you, and remember constantly that God's loving eyes are upon you amid all these little worries and vexations, watching whether you take them as He would desire. Offer up all such occasions to Him, and if sometimes you are put out, and give way to impatience, do not be discouraged, but make haste to regain your lost composure. — Francis De Sales

Even a little gift may be vast with loving kindness. — Theocritus

By regarding ourselves with kindness, we begin to dissolve the identity of an isolated, deficient self. This creates the grounds for including others in an unconditionally loving heart. — Tara Brach

I admire the fact that the central core of Buddhist teaching involves mindfulness and loving kindness and compassion. — Ron Reagan

The journey to loving ourselves doesn't mean we like everything. — Sharon Salzberg

This is the Day in which God's most excellent favors have been poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all created things. It is incumbent upon all the peoples of the world to reconcile their differences, and, with perfect unity and peace, abide beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and loving-kindness. — Baha'u'llah

Peace is in selfless caring
Peace is in true understanding
Peace is in undeserved kindness
Peace is in joyful forgiveness
Peace is in innocent trust
Peace is in becoming just
Peace is in a dancing butterfly
Peace is in a clear starry sky
Peace is a child's loving kiss
Peace is a life's pure bliss — Debasish Mridha

What is most important is to go deep into ourselves and discover the loving kindness and compassion of the buddha within - the awakened nature we all possess. — Shinjo Ito

People will not remember what you did for living,
they will remember how you touched them with kindness and loving. — Debasish Mridha

Respect kindly all religions that teach loving kindness, and have no respect for envy and jealousy. Never follow hate. — Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

You can experiment with directing metta toward a difficult aspect of yourself. There may be physical or emotional aspects of yourself you have struggled with, denied, avoided, been at war with. Sit quietly, sending yourself metta. After some time, turn your attention to the loneliness, anger, disability, addiction, or whatever aspect of your mind or body you feel most estranged from. Healing begins with the open, compassionate acknowledgment of these unpleasant aspects of our lives. Surround the painful element of your experience with the warmth and acceptance of metta. You can use phrases such as, ' May I accept this,' 'May I be filled with loving kindness toward this,' 'May I use the pain of this experience for the welfare of all. — Sharon Salzberg

Love yourself and extend the love to others. — Lailah Gifty Akita

To write out the precepts again, we contend with them, and keep them; we build our humanity, and keep our humanity alive ... Thay has named the precepts 'wonderful' ... Wonderful because they can protect us, and show us how to live a joyous life, an interesting, adventurous, deep, large life, and how to be with one another, and with animals, plants, and all the Earth and universe. Wonderful because when we practice the precepts, we existentially become humane, we embody loving kindness ... Standing in the midst of burning ruins, I was glad that I knew the precepts. Though I kept their tenets imperfectly, even in aspiration I created some invisible good that could not be destroyed ... The Five Wonderful Precepts give clear and simple directions to finding that life. In devastation, I have blueprints for making home anew (90-92).
For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Wonderful Precepts — Maxine Hong Kingston

And above all, what a strange attitude that actually is, when we no longer find Christian service worthwhile if the denarius of salvation may be obtained even without it! It seems as if we want to be rewarded, not just with our own salvation, but most especially with other people's damnation - just like the workers hired in the first hour. That is very human, but the Lord's parable is particularly meant to make us quite aware of how profoundly un-Christian it is at the same time. Anyone who looks on the loss of salvation for others as the condition, as it were, on which he serves Christ will in the end only be able to turn away grumbling, because THAT kind of reward is contrary to the loving-kindness of God.
-What It Means To Be A Christian — Pope Benedict XVI

May we ever watch over one another, assisting in times of need. Let us not be critical and judgmental, but let us be tolerant, ever emulating the Savior's example of loving-kindness. In that vein, may we willingly serve one another. May we pray for the inspiration to know of the needs of those around us, and then may we go forward and provide assistance. — Thomas S. Monson

Humility makes us more friendly
Happiness makes us more lively.
Love makes us more caring
Dream makes us more daring.
Trust makes us more forgiving
Kindness makes us more loving.
Hope gives us the joy of dreaming
Peace gives us the joy of living. — Debasish Mridha

If you have the chance to be exposed to a loving, understanding environment where the seed of compassion, loving kindness, can be watered every day, then you become a more loving person. — Nhat Hanh

Loving kindness is a form of love that truly is an ability, and, as research scientists have show, it can be learned. It is the ability to take some risks with our awareness-to look at ourselves and others with kindness instead of reflexive criticism; to include in our concern those to whom we normally pay no attention; to care for ourselves unconditionally instead of thinking, "I will love myself as long as I never make a mistake." It is the ability to gather our attention and really listen to others, even those we've written off as not worth our time. It is the ability to see the humanity in people we don't know and the pain in people we find difficult. — Sharon Salzberg

Saints are the great teachers of the loving-kindness and fascination with God. — Evelyn Underhill

Loving friends let kindness grow in their hearts, creating a oneness with their souls. — Tom Baker

The more you nurture a feeling of loving kindness, the happier and calmer you will be. — Dalai Lama

On present-day Earth we have the most Christ-like nation in human history, a civilization built on loving kindness and demilitarization. They are being wiped off the face of their homeland. Well, at least the Chinese government isn't blaming Christ or Buddha for their actions against Tibet! But many savage pillagers throughout the past two thousand years have, and the Romans of a thousand years ago fall into that category. Within five hundred years they erased nearly all the nature-based, matriarchal tribes in what we now know as Europe. The invaders falsified history in order to justify their greed. Harmless facts and beautiful rituals were twisted to appear Satanic. Love of the environment and its animals and plants, love of healing modalities that modern day health professionals are now searching frantically to recover, were spin-doctored into demented superstition and turned outlaw. — Doug "Ten" Rose

Buddhism is more a philosophy for living rather than a religion or dogma - it's about being awake, free from illusions and fear, so that compassion and loving kindness permeates all of our relationships. — Charlotte Kasl

Everyone around you becomes kind and loving when you express your kindness and beauty of love. — Debasish Mridha

Truth is Evidence of Love. And, Nothing Can Stop the Power of Trusting and Loving Unconditionally. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

When things fall apart and we can't get the pieces back together, when we lose something dear to us, when they whole thing is just not working and we don't know what to do, this is the time when the natural warmth of tenderness, the warmth of empathy and kindness, are just waiting to be uncovered, just waiting to be embraced. This is our chance to come out of our self-protecting bubble and to realize that we are never alone. This is our chance to finally understand that wherever we go, everyone we meet is essentially just like us. Our own suffering, if we turn toward it, can open us to a loving relationship with the world. — Pema Chodron

All the work I do is built on a foundation of loving-kindness. Love illuminates matters. — Bell Hooks

If you can only do one thing today, choose to help someone in need. There are many who are less fortunate. Take some time to lend a helping hand. You will be surprised by how much you will uplift their spirit. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

God doesn't call us to mediocrity. He calls us to a greater standard that doesn't teach us to tear people down to reach him, but to lift others up. Be the type of person that when people walk away from you, they know who you represent! — Shannon L. Alder

For those moments, life is worth living. Moments of kindness, caring, and loving. — Debasish Mridha

Love is nothing but felicity and loving kindness,
It is nothing but gladness and right guidance. — Rumi

It's time that Islam should be redefined by the world based upon, the goodness of all the peace-loving Muslims, instead of the theoretical teachings of some books, be it Quran or the Hadith. — Abhijit Naskar

If you are motivated by loving kindness and compassion, there are many ways to bring happiness to others right now, starting with kind speech. — Nhat Hanh

Though there are many barriers to expressing unreserved love, no such impediments to a developing a loving and generous heart deter a spiritual warrior. He who is without love is bereft of richness of life. Compassion, empathy, kindness, tenderness, and patience are essential for love. Anger, frustration, jealously, greed, and hatred are the antonym to love. When we love other people with all our ferocity, we transcend the misuse, waste, pain, tragedy, death, anguish, erotic obsessions, unaccountable confusion, and self-absorbed personal ambitions that, if left unchecked, numb our earthly existence. — Kilroy J. Oldster

To indulge one's instinctive and uncontrolled sense of justice and right, was not, he had found, permitted with impunity in an old civilization like ours. It was necessary to act under an acquired and cultivated sense of the same, if you wished to enjoy an average share of comfort and honour; and to let crude loving kindness take care of itself. — Thomas Hardy