Work And Kindness Quotes & Sayings

Kindness and Truth should always hold hands. Together they are powerful and fully capable of spreading insight and revelation, while also generating conviction and true repentance. However, one without the other is never as beneficial or profitable.

When truth is spoken in a callous manner, or merely in a hurried fashion, discourse will most likely follow. By forgetting to speak honest words with the love and kindness of God behind them, our candor will put folks off. This in turn hinders our effectiveness and the work of the Holy Spirit — Cheryl Zelenka

We are constituted so that simple acts of kindness, such as giving to charity or expressing gratitude, have a positive effect on our long-term moods. The key to the happy life, it seems, is the good life: a life with sustained relationships, challenging work, and connections to community. — Paul Bloom

We need, in a special way, to work twice as hard to help people understand that the animals are fellow creatures, that we must protect them and love them as we love ourselves. — Cesar Chavez

The truest kindness to any woman is to provide her with an opportunity for self-expression in some constructive field: to work, not at home with cook-stove and scrubbing brush, but outside, independently, in the world of men and affairs. — William Moulton Marston

What happens to a marriage? A persistent failure of kindness, triggered at first, at least in my case, by the inequities of raising children, the sacrifices that take a woman by surprise and that she expects to be matched by her mate but that biology ensures cannot be. Anything could set me off. Any innocuous habit or slight or oversight. The way your father left the lights of the house blazing, day and night. The way he could become so distracted at work that sometimes when I called, he'd put me on hold and forget me, only remembering again when I'd hung up and called back. The way he wore his pain so privately, whistling around the house after we'd had a spat, pretending nonchalance, protecting you and your sisters from discord, hiding behind his good nature, inadvertently — Jan Ellison

For my father, being kind was natural ... I have to really work at it. I love competing and winning, conquest - not words you usually associate with kindness. — David Copperfield

One of the obstacles to recognizing chronic mistreatment in relationships is that most abusive men simply don't seem like abusers. They have many good qualities, including times of kindness, warmth, and humor, especially in the early period of a relationship. An abuser's friends may think the world of him. He may have a successful work life and have no problems with drugs or alcohol. He may simply not fit anyone's image of a cruel or intimidating person. So when a woman feels her relationship spinning out of control, it is unlikely to occur to her that her partner is an abuser. — Lundy Bancroft

By softening our attitudes, practicing mercy and compassion, we transform our lives by transforming other people's experience of us. Send love before you when you enter a room, and people will subconsciously feel it; they'll be prone to show greater kindness in return. That's how love makes things work better in our lives; it realigns the reactions of people and things around us. — Marianne Williamson

I am inspired by my mother's faith and the teaching I receive under the leadership of Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer. I am also inspired by hard work and powerful people who have maintained a sense of integrity, decency, and kindness. Love really inspires me. — Erica Tazel

I turned back to my work and lifted the lid of the last crate.

I sat down. Hard. And stared.

It was filled with paper. Ink. Blank journals.

In one wonderful, horrible moment I knew that I was lost. Keir, Warlord, had taken me, claimed me, made me his warprize. But somewhere, somehow, he had managed to find a way into my heart as well.

How had this happened? I'd given myself to a barbarian, a ravaging, crazed warlord, expecting little more than abuse and dishonor at his hands. But this man had offered nothing but kindness and respect to me, his property. I knew this gift was by his hand, I'd not spoken to Sal about paper or ink, and she'd not understand its importance.

Could he care so much that he paid attention to this tiny detail?

Did he want me to be happy? — Elizabeth Vaughan

Kindness in your dealings with yourself and others will work wonders in your life. Much more so than rightness in your thinking. — Kim R. Shaffer

When the first women started work in the barracks on 25 August 1942, Siemens & Halske joined three other major German manufacturers- IG Farbe at Auschwitz, Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG at Mauthausen and Heinkel at Sachsenhausen-in using concertation-camp slave labour. So pleased was the company with its new Ravensbruck factory that Rudolf Dingel...wrote to the Reichsfuhrer SS thanking him warmly. Himmler's kindness towards Siemens inspired him with 'particular joy. — Sarah Helm

Our lives of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal. 5:22, 23). There is no longer the tiring need to hide our inner selves from others. We do not have to work hard at being good and kind; we are good and kind. To refrain from being good and kind would be the hard work because goodness and kindness are part of our nature. — Richard J. Foster

You can give so much in this life, and that offers you many opportunities to release the self. For example, you can give time, helpfulness, donations, restraint, patience, noncontention, and forgiveness. Any path of service - including raising a family, caring for others, and many kinds of work - incorporates generosity. Envy - and its close cousin, jealousy - is a major impediment to generosity. So notice the suffering in envy, how it is an affliction upon you. Envy actually activates some of the same neural networks involved with physical pain (Takahashi et al. 2009). In a compassionate and kind way, remind yourself that you will be all right even if other people have fame, money, or a great partner - and you don't. To free yourself from the clutches of envy, send compassion and loving-kindness to people you envy. — Rick Hanson

Befriending provides a valuable lifeline to many people who feel isolated in their communities often as a result of ill health or poverty. I would like to thank all those who volunteer as befrienders and I hope that your numbers will increase in coming years. Your kindness and hard work is, I know, very much appreciated by those you help. — Charles Kennedy

So let me just say this. There are ways. You already know that because, in your life, there have been High Kindness periods and Low Kindness periods, and you know what inclined you toward the former and away from the latter. Education is good; immersing ourselves in a work of art: good; prayer is good; meditation's good; a frank talk with a dear friend; establishing ourselves in some kind of spiritual tradition - recognizing that there have been countless really smart people before us who have asked these same questions and left behind answers for us. It would be strange and self-defeating to fail to seek out these wise voices from the past
as self-defeating as it would be to attempt to rediscover the principles of physics from scratch or invent a new method of brain surgery without having learned the ones that already exist. — George Saunders

I still believe in dreams. I still think that if we work together, things will turn out all right. I still feel that if we each treat each other with kindness, dignity, and respect, we will live happily ever after. I have hope. — Michael Hingson

I regularly tell our seminary students that if I happen to visit the church in which one of them serves, I will not ask first, "Is this man a good preacher?" Rather, first of all I will ask the secretaries, office staff, janitors, and cleaners what it is like to work for this pastor. I will ask, "What kind of man is he? Is he a servant? Is he demanding and harsh, or his he patient, kind, and forbearing as a man in authority?" One of our graduates may preach great sermons, but if he is a pain to work for, then you know he will cause major problems in any congregation. Leaders in the church are required by Scripture to set an example in the areas of love, kindness, gentleness, patience, and forbearance before they are appointed to preach, teach, and rule. If we obediently require these attitudes and character traits of our leaders, what will our "new community" look like — Jerram Barrs

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.
Amen. — Craig Groeschel

Galatians 5:22-23 describes the fruit of the Spirit, which is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Notice the verse does not say the "fruits" of the Spirit, but fruit. The fruit, or result, of the Spirit working in our lives is that we become not just some but all of these things: more loving, more patient, more faithful, and so forth. This verse is not a to-do list for us to work through, but a description of the transformation that occurs when God's Spirit begins to work in us. — Keri Wyatt Kent

If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness, our protective shells will melt, and we'll find that more areas of our lives are workable. AS we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others-what and whom we can work with, and how-becomes wider. — Pema Chodron

Though cruel now, it serves a deeper kindness, Wise to the larger call of growth. It invites us to humility And the painstaking work of acceptance So — John O'Donohue

But just then, as if to avoid a certain awkwardness, Seaman began to talk not about Newell but about Newell's mother, Anne Jordan Newell. He described her appearance (pleasing), her work (she had a job at a factory that made irrigation systems), her faith (she went to church every Sunday), her industriousness (she kept the house as neat as a pin), her kindness (she always had a smile for everyone), her common sense (she gave good advice, wise advice, without forcing it on anyone). A mother is a precious thing, concluded Seaman. Marius and I founded the Panthers. We worked whatever jobs we could get and we bought shotguns and handguns for the people's self-defense. But a mother is worth more than the Black Revolution. That I can promise you. In my long and eventful life, I've seen many things. I was in Algeria and I was in China and in several prisons in the United States. A mother is a precious thing. This I say here and I'll say anywhere, anytime, he said in a hoarse voice. — Roberto Bolano

You haven't said yet weather I may help you while I am here"
Elnora hesitated.
You better say 'yes,'" he persisted.
It would be a real kindness. It would keep me out doors all day and give an incentive to work. I'm good at it. I'll show you if I am not in a week or so. I can 'sugar' manipulate lights, and mirrors, and all the expert methods. I'll wager moths are think int the old swamp over there"
They are," said Elnora. "Most I have I took there. A few nights ago my mother caught a good many, but we don't dare go alone"
All the more reason why you need me. Where do you live? I can't get an answer from you, I'll just go tell your mother who I am and ask her if I may help you. I warn you young lady, I have a very effective way with mothers. They almost never turn me down."
Then it's probable you will have a new experience when you meet mine," said Elnora. "She never was known to do what anyone expected she surely would. — Gene Stratton-Porter

I wanted to hear his window open, hear his espadrilles on the balcony, and then the sound of my own window, which was never locked, being pushed open as he'd step into my room after everyone had gone to bed, slip under my covers, undress me without asking, and after making me want him more than I thought I could ever want another living soul, gently, softly, and, with the kindness one Jew extends to another, work his way into my body, gently and softly, after heeding the words I'd been rehearsing for days now, Please, don't hurt me, which meant, Hurt me all you want. — Andre Aciman

Human mortality linked to the human ability consciously to choose how to act by exhibiting free will, humility, hard work, kindness, and compassion provide exemplary opportunities to learn and develop self-discipline. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Yet already their destruction begins. It comes upon them gradually, in little ways. Bit by bit their belief in themselves erodes. A growing cynicism pervades their lives. Small acts of kindness and charity are abandoned as pointless and somehow indicative of weakness. Little failures of behavior lead to bigger ones. It is not enough to ignore the discourtesies of others; discourtesies must be repaid in kind. Men are intolerant and judgmental. They are without grace. If one man proclaims that God has spoken to him, another quickly proclaims that his God is false. If the homeless cannot find shelter, then surely they are to blame for their condition. If the poor do not have jobs, then surely it is because they will not work. If sickness strikes down those whose lifestyle differs from our own, then surely they have brought it on themselves. — Terry Brooks

In our time we have come to the stage where the real work of humanity begins. It is the time where we partner Creation in the creation of ourselves, in the restoration of the biosphere, the regenesis of society and in the assuming of a new type of culture; the culture of Kindness. Herein, we live daily life reconnected and recharged by the Source, so as to become liberated and engaged in the world and in our tasks. — Jean Houston

Let love flow out of you in big and small acts of kindness. Love is kindness with its work clothes on. — Annette Vaillancourt

You know, Maneck, the human face has limited space. My mother used to say, if you fill your face with laughing, there will be no more room for crying."
"What a nice saying," he answered bitterly.
"Right now, Dinabai's face, and Om's, and mine are all occupied. Worrying about work and money, and where to sleep tonight. But that does not mean we are not sad. It may not show on the face, but it's sitting inside here." He placed his hand over his heart. "In here, there is limitless room- happiness, kindness, sorrow, anger, friendship- everything fits in here. — Rohinton Mistry

Hitting bottom is an inside job - it's something that happens within our consciousness. — Christopher Dines

When evening comes, I go back home, and go to my study. On the threshold I take off my work clothes, covered in mud and filth, and put on the clothes an ambassador would wear. Decently dressed, I enter the ancient courts of rulers who have long since died. There I am warmly welcomed, and I feed on the only food I find nourishing, and was born to savor. I am not ashamed to talk to them, and to ask them to explain their actions. And they, out of kindness, answer me. Four hours go by without my feeling any anxiety. I forget every worry. I am no longer afraid of poverty, or frightened of death. I live entirely through them. — Niccolo Machiavelli

No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves. — Amelia Earhart

Kill them with kindness and if that didn't work, use a shotgun — Heidi Cullinan

The process of recovering from addictiveness happens at a deeper level of consciousness and through feeling our pain without using old addictive fixes. There is no escaping that getting in touch with our original pain is the touchstone to mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. — Christopher Dines

Life will never meet all of our expectations. We must nonetheless accept all disappointments without becoming bitter and cynical. We must always remain mindful of the opportunity to extend kindness and work to improve our character. — Kilroy J. Oldster

It is important to reflect on the kindness of others. Every aspect of our present well-being is due to others' hard work. The buildings we live and work in, the roads we travel, the clothes we wear, and the food we eat, are all provided by others. None of them would exist but for the kindness of so many people unknown to us. — Dalai Lama

You can only afford to be generous if you actually have some money in the bank to give. In the same way, if your only source of love and meaning is your spouse, then anytime he or she fails you, it will not just cause grief but a psychological cataclysm. If, however, you know something of the work of the Spirit in your life, you have enough love "in the bank" to be generous to your spouse even when you are not getting much affection or kindness at the moment. — Timothy Keller

When the horse gives a little, praise a lot. Love and kindness are both the method and the reward. What you give is what you get back. You must be quiet to hear them speak. Everything in sequence.
Always work the horse in the same spot. It's like his desk in school. Always end on a good note. Wean the horse off treats quickly. — Carole Fletcher

Never refuse to do a kindness unless the act would work great injury to yourself, and never refuse to take a drink - under any circumstances. — Mark Twain

May we show increased kindness toward one another, and may we ever be found doing the work of the Lord. — Thomas S. Monson

Many of us incorrectly assume that a spiritual life begins when we change what we normally do in our daily life. We feel we must change our job, our living situation, our relationship, our address, our diet, or our clothes before we can truly begin a spiritual practice. And yet it is not the act but the awareness, the vitality, and the kindness we bring to our work that allows it to become sacred. — Wayne Muller

Kindness is an essential part of Gods work and ours here on earth. — Billy Graham

The real important things are kindness and a sense of humor. I've been fortunate to have dated and could have easily married women who have those qualities, and time and circumstances didn't work out. Timing plays a big part. — Hill Harper

In a world full of sadness and travail, kindness is not to be underestimated. You have the change to do a great deal of good, my dear, just by showing kindness to those the trail brings your way. Whatever you do, do your work heartily, not as unto men, but as unto God. He will take notice and He will be pleased. — Stephanie Grace Whitson

I believe in kindness and niceness and lots of spiritual things, but the real intellectual rigor and quest of logic is something that I'm afraid takes incredibly hard work and we live in an age in which hard work is if not actively deprecated or denigrated it is run away from or ignored. — Stephen Fry

We love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, extend kindness to the ungrateful, and flood evil people with mercy not because such behavior will always work at confronting injustice, but because such behavior showcases God's stubborn delight in un-delightful people. Faithfulness rather than perceived effectiveness motivates our response to evil. — Preston Sprinkle

I'm thinking that I was a lonely, hopeless person, and I might have fallen in love with the first thing that showed me a hint of kindness and safety. And I'm thinking maybe he knew that - maybe not actively, but maybe he wanted to be that person for someone. And maybe that worked for who I was before. Maybe it doesn't work for who - what I am now. — Sarah J. Maas

The good young man went out and I felt the great relief that simple kindness can work. It is a salve of the spirit, surely. — Geraldine Brooks

The man Dickens, whom the world at large thought it knew, stood for all the Victorian virtues - probity, kindness, hard work, sympathy for the down-trodden, the sanctity of domestic life - even as his novels exposed the violence, hypocrisy, greed, and cruelty of the Victorian age. — Robert Gottlieb

I embrace the term 'evangelical,' if by that we mean a belief that we together can actually work for change in the world, caring for the environment, extending to the poor generosity and kindness, a hopeful outlook. That's a beautiful sort of thing. — Rob Bell

Whoever declares another heretic is himself a devil. Whoever places a relic or artifact above justice, kindness, mercy, or truth is himself a devil and the thing elevated is a work of evil magic. — Sheri S. Tepper

Great things are wrought through simple and small things. Like the small flecks of gold that accumulate over time into a large treasure, our small and simple acts of kindness and service will accumulate into a life filled with love for Heavenly Father, devotion to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a sense of peace and joy each time we reach out to one another. — M. Russell Ballard

Dogfish
I wanted
The past to go away, I wanted
To leave it, like another country; I wanted
My life to close, and open
Like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
Where it falls
Down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
To hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,
Whoever I was, I was
Alive
For a little while.
... mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
Or mean,
For a simple reason.
And nobody gets out of it, having to
Swim through the fires to stay in
This world. — Mary Oliver

The Dalai Lama has said: "My religion is kindness." If we all adopted such a stance and embodied it in thought and action, inner and outer peace would be immediate, for in reality they are never not present, only obscured, waiting to be discovered. This is the work and the power of lovingkindness, the embrace that allows no separation between self, others, and events - the affirmation and honoring of a core goodness in others and in oneself. — Sharon Salzberg

Striving to be good is the ultimate struggle of every man. Being bad is easy, but being good requires sincere commitment, discipline and strength. We have to work hard every day just to remain good. — Suzy Kassem

The prophet said, "Be ye imitators of God as dear children." How would I imitate God? Well, we are told that God calls things that are not seen as though they were seen, and the unseen becomes seen. This is the way the girl called forth praise and kindness from her employer. She carried on an imaginary conversation with her employer from the premise that he had praised her work, and he did. — Neville Goddard

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. — Robert F. Kennedy

Happy Thursday! Life at work and at home is so much HAPPIER when you speak and act with kindness!! Share a SMILE and make it a great day! — Tracey Edmonds

Education ... is a painful, continual and difficult work to be done in kindness, by watching, by warning, ... by praise, but above all
by example. — John Ruskin

I know what you are thinking - you need a sign. What better one could I give than to make this little one whole and new? I could do it, but I will not. I am the Lord and not a conjurer. I gave this mite a gift I denied to all of you - eternal innocence. To you, he looks imperfect but to me he is flawless like the bud that dies unopened or the fledgling that falls from the nest to be devoured by the ants. He will never offend me, as all of you have done. He will never pervert or destroy the work of my Father's hands. He is necessary to you. He will evoke the kindness that will keep you human. His infirmity will prompt you to gratitude for your own good fortune. More! He will remind you every day that I am who I am, that my ways are not yours, and that the smallest dust mite, while in darkest space, does not fall out of my hand. I have chosen you. You have not chosen me. This little one is my sign to you. Treasure him! — Morris L. West

It's a strange thing, but somehow we expect more of girls than of boys. It is the sisters and wives and mothers, you know, Caddie, who keep the world sweet and beautiful. What a rough world it would be if there were only men and boys in it, doing things in their rough way! A woman's task is to teach them gentleness and courtesy and love and kindness. It's a big task, too, Caddie
harder than cutting trees or building mills or damming rivers. It takes nerve and courage and patience, but good women have those things. They have them just as much as the men who build bridges and carve roads through the wilderness. A woman's work is something fine and noble to grow up to, and it is just as important as a man's. — Carol Ryrie Brink

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. There are not many such books. All the rest is either topical trash or what some call the Literature of Ideas, which very often is topical trash coming in huge blocks of plaster that are carefully transmitted from age to age until somebody comes along with a hammer and takes a good crack at Balzac, at Gorki, at Mann. — Vladimir Nabokov

It is not about how much money we make or how big and powerful our work appears to others, it is about the love with which we put into each act of kindness toward another human being. — Joyce Vissell

I've worked with volunteers before," he began. "It's important not to ... not to treat them like servants. We may feel that they are laboring to obtain a heavenly reward, and should therefore work harder than they would for money; but they don't necessarily take that attitude. They feel they're working for nothing, and doing a great kindness to us thereby; and if we seem ungrateful they will work slowly and make mistakes. It will be best to rule them with a light touch. — Ken Follett

First, I'll kill the dog with kindness, and if that doesn't work, I'll just kill him. — Edward Albee

She was the kind
To tell it like it is
To kiss and tell
To kiss and kill
To kill with kindness

She was the kind
To get things through her thick skull
To work her fingers to the bone
To work on her back
To never take it lying down

She was the kind
To lay down the law
To get down on her knees
To get up on her feet
To give an inch and take a mile

She was the kind
To stand up for herself
To sit down strike
To go to the wall
To take it to the limit

She was the kind
To take it too far
To drop off the face of the earth
To face the music
To hit rock bottom

She was the kind
To get back on that horse and ride it
To get up on her high horse
To get down to business
To turn the world upside down — Heid E. Erdrich

To look at the work of your peers, and learn how to explain with kindness and precision, the nature of their mistakes is, in fact, how you learn to diagnose your own work. — Steve Almond

I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness. — Mother Teresa

Treat yourself and others with kindness when you eat, exercise, play, work, love, and everything else. When you think, feel, and act kindly, you hasten your ability to connect to the power of intention. — Wayne Dyer

If we based everything in Hollywood on who was a nice guy, holy moly, we would have no movies. No actors would work. This is not an industry that is ruled by kindness and generosity. — Amy Sherman-Palladino

...rewilding is all about being nice, kind, compassionate, empathic, and harnessing our inborn goodness and optimism. We must all work together at this. It's about time we focus on the good side of human and animal nature. ... nature offers many lessons for kinder society. Blood shouldn't sell. — Marc Bekoff

I, for one, am profoundly grateful to feel the hand of God at work in my life. But at the beginning and end of the day, when my default setting is to show kindness and love to others, I never regret it. And to me, that is what faith is all about. — Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick

Make an effort with tenacity to make real impact that works and don't just create an impression with deception — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack. That concentrating on anything is very hard work. — David Foster Wallace

There is a widespread belief that americans hate cities. I think it is probable that Americans hate city failure, but, from the evidence, we certainly do not hate successful and vital city areas. On the contrary, so many people want to make use of such places, so many people want to work in them or live in them or visit in them, that municipal self-destruction ensues. In killing successful diversity combinations with money, we are employing perhaps our nearest equivalent to killing with kindness. — Jane Jacobs

I see a strategy for fracturing humanity well in play: just keep people separated and let them reinforce invented boundaries in their imaginations. Because when people come together and really listen to each other, doing the hard work of human kindness, virtually every barrier is breached. — Jen Hatmaker

If you develop a pure and sincere motivation, if you are motivated by a wish to help on the basis of kindness, compassion, and respect, then you can carry on any kind of work, in any field, and function more effectively. — Dalai Lama

New Evangelization is the work of the whole Church - lay, ordained, and consecrated. It's about friends, family, and co-workers reaching out to one another and proclaiming the truth of Christ using all available means - conversation, personal witness, media, and the vast array of intellectual and spiritual riches the Church has built up in her two-thousand-year history. It's about simple acts of kindness, simple challenges issued in love, and simple questions asked with sincerity. More fundamentally, the New Evangelization is more for the baptized than the unbaptized. It's for those who've been inadequately catechized but all too adequately secularized, and it's for those who've been de-Christianized in the very process of being sacramentalized. — Scott Hahn

My reverence for all life has become my guiding principle. It informs every aspect of my existence, including my choices about work, entertainment, home decor, healthcare, fashion, and, of course, diet. I have found my core belief surprisingly simple to adhere to. They are not sacrifices. If compassion is my religion, these are the actions I use to celebrate it. These are my rituals. For me, living fully awake means embracing all species with the same level of respect and kindness. Being a joyful vegan doesn't take willpower - just a willingness to try new things and choose mercy over misery. — Mark Hawthorne

The Koran teaches that deeds of unselfish kindness will be rewarded in heaven. I've given you precious food and for this unselfishness I will find reward. But now I shall go further. I am going to give you work. — Rose Tremain

One of the toughest things for leaders to master is kindness. Kindness shares credit and offers enthusiastic praise for others' work. It's a balancing act between being genuinely kind and not looking weak. — Travis Bradberry

I could not do what I do without the kindness, consideration, resourcefulness and work of librarians, particularly in public libraries. What started me writing history happened because of some curiosity that I had about some photographs I'd seen in the Library of Congress. — David McCullough

Susan said. "Kindness is not dangerous. You have found a way to work and live which allows you to integrate the violence and the compassion. If you had no impulse to violence, your compassion wouldn't be so admirable. If you had no compassion, your violence would be intolerable. You understand what I'm saying? — Robert B. Parker

In this world in which we live simplicity and kindness are the only magic wands that work wonders — L. Frank Baum

And yet we are often tempted to encourage others with insincere praise. In this we treat them like children - while failing to help them prepare for encounters with those who will judge them like adults. I'm not saying that we need to go out of our way to criticize others. But when asked for an honest opinion, we do our friends no favors by pretending not to notice flaws in their work, especially when those who are not their friends are bound to notice the same flaws. Sparing others disappointment and embarrassment is a great kindness. And if we have a history of being honest, our praise and encouragement will actually mean something. I — Sam Harris

He believed with all his heart that we should spend our lives in happiness and service, in joy and work, in kindness and in love, and he lived... and died... what he believed. — Aleksandra Layland

Then there was Mr Mandela. Everybody knew about Mr Mandela and how he had forgiven those who had imprisoned him. They had taken away years and years of his life simply because he wanted justice. They had set him to work in a quarry and his eyes had been permanently damaged by the rock dust. But at last, when he had walked out of the prison on that breathless, luminous day, he had said nothing about revenge or even retribution. He had said that there were more important things to do than to complain about the past, and in time he had shown that he meant this by hundreds of acts of kindness towards those who had treated him so badly. That was the real African way, the tradition that was closest to the heart of Africa. We are all children of Africa, and none of us is better or more important than the other. This is what Africa could say to the world: it could remind it what it is to be human. — Alexander McCall Smith

In the face of Jesus' dogged steadfastness, how could we but offer him our own loyal allegiance? As we have seen, our decision to serve Jesus should be made not in order to earn Jesus' grace but as a response to it. He who has given so much for us can rightly call us to lay down our lives for him. Recognizing that we will continue to stumble and fall short of his impeccable standard, we nonetheless strain onward out of gratitude for his mercy and kindness to us. Why do we serve the poor or preach the Gospel? Why do we continue with the otherwise foolish work of peace-making or justice-seeking? Not out of some neurotic fear of losing God's favor but precisely because we have tasted that favor and would do anything for the one who died to win it for us. — Michael Frost

Just as compassion is the wish that all sentient beings be free of suffering, loving-kindness is the wish that all may enjoy happiness. As with compassion, when cultivating loving-kindness it is important to start by taking a specific individual as a focus of our meditation, and we then extend the scope of our concern further and further, to eventually encompass and embrace all sentient beings. Again, we begin by taking a neutral person, a person who inspires no strong feelings in us, as our object of meditation. We then extend this meditation to individual friends and family members and, ultimately, our particular enemies.
We must use a real individual as the focus of our meditation, and then enhance our compassion and loving-kindness toward that person so that we can really experience compassion and loving-kindness toward others. We work on one person at a time. — Dalai Lama XIV

There is no substitute for hard work and taking responsibility for own own lives. And there is no substitute for love, patience, kindness and acceptance. — Jose N. Harris

However, for Hardy the possibility of poetry's traditional function of transcendence remains, but in a more limited form. In Hardy's work the poet transcends himself towards humanity, affirming the central values of loving-kindness and fellowship. — Geoffrey Harvey

I hope you will grow up gentle and good, and never learn bad ways; do your work with a good will, lift your feet up well when you trot, and never bite or kick even in play. — Anna Sewell

I have a theory that you can tell what the head of a company is like by the people who work there. I knew a publishing house that was run on fear and paranoia, and I felt sorry for everyone who worked there. Needless to say, the person at the helm was not known for kindness, warmth, or grace. — Jane Green

How could anything be the same? The red of blood lay over the market road in slick pools mingled with a yellow spread of dal someone must have brought in anticipation of a picnic after the parade, and there were flies on it, left behind odd slippers, and a sad pair of broken spectacles, even a tooth. It was rather like the government warning about safety that appeared in the cinema before the movie with the image of a man cycling to work, a poor man but with a wife who loved him, and she had sent his lunch with him in a tiffin container; then came a blowing of horns and small, desperate cycle tinkle, and a messy blur clearing into the silent still image of a spread of food mingled with blood. Those mismatched colors, domesticity shuffled with death, sureness running into the unexpected, kindness replaced by the image of violence, always made the cook feel like throwing up and weeping both together. — Kiran Desai

Opportunities for kindness are flowing past us continuously, during the hours we spend at home, in the office or store or shop or laboratory where we work, as we walk along the street, as we drive hither and yon, as we travel by train or plane or bus - in short, wherever we are and whatever we are doing. — David Dunn

For the multifold secret to work only one thing is necessary. You must take action. You must give. You must share. You must act with abandon. Send out waves of love and kindness into the world and then simply wait for the response. Or, better yet, continue to send out more waves. Why wait? The response will come. Keep sending waves and enjoy the reaction. — John Kremer

The sense of a small courageous community barely existing above the desert of trees, hemmed in by a sun too fierce to work under and a darkness filled with evil spirits - love was an arm round the neck, a cramped embrace in the smoke, wealth a little pile of palm-nuts, old age sores and leprosy, religion a few stones in the centre of the village where the dead chiefs lay, a grove of trees where the rice birds, like yellow and green canaries, built their nests, a man in a mask with raffia skirts dancing at burials. This never varied, only their kindness to strangers, the extent of their poverty and the immediacy of their terrors. Their laughter and their happiness seemed the most courageous things in nature — Graham Greene

How do you surrender when every cell of your being is screaming that your life is not working and that you need to do something to make it work? How do you surrender in that moment when jealousies, envy, doubt, rage, resentment all rise up inside you? You accept that you are resisting letting go; you accept that perhaps you are not yet ready to take your hands off the steering wheel; you accept this with kindness to who you are in the moment, being gentle and tender instead of beating yourself over the head with the 'Must hurry up, time is of the essence, everyone is passing me by' train of thought. — Kelly Martin

It's all a matter of paying attention, being awake in the present moment, and not expecting a huge payoff. The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses. — Charles De Lint