A simple but often underappreciated way to live a happier life is through kindness.
So in this post I’d like to share the most powerful and best kindness quotes I’ve found in the past 10+ years. Thoughts from the past 2500 years about kindness and care for others but also towards yourself.
But first, why is kindness so powerful?
Well, here’s three of my favorite reasons that I keep in mind and that helps me to try to be a kinder person:
1. I get what I give.
Most people will over time tend to treat you as you treat them.
2. If I'm kinder towards others then I tend to be kinder towards myself.
I’ve found that the way I treat others – no matter if that’s in a positive or negative way – has a big effect on how I think about and treat myself too.
3. Kindness keeps on rippling outward.
Me being kind towards someone makes them a bit happier and may turn their afternoon or day around. And so they extend a kind word or action to someone in their life. And that person may continue and pay the kindness forward.
That’s my three most important reasons. Now, on to the timeless kindness quotes.
And if you want more inspiration then check out this post with quotes on knowing your true worth and value and this one about focusing on yourself.
Inspirational Kindness Quotes
“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Kindness – that simple word. To be kind – it covers everything, to my mind. If you’re kind that’s it.”
Roald Dahl
“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”
Lao Tzu
“Sometimes it takes only one act of kindness and caring to change a person’s life.”
Jackie Chan
“Don’t just show kindness in passing or to be courteous. Show it in depth, show it with passion, and expect nothing in return. Kindness is not just about being nice; it’s about recognizing another human being who deserves care and respect.”
Colin Powell
“As much as we need a prosperous economy, we also need a prosperity of kindness and decency.”
Caroline Kennedy
“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
Mark Twain
“Kindness is not a business. True kindness expects nothing in return and should never act with conditions.”
Roy T. Bennett
“Treat others as you wish to be treated. Don’t just be nice, but be kind to other people. That can be so rewarding.”
Mary Lambert
“How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make a contribution toward introducing justice straightaway. And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!””
Anne Frank
“Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness.”
Dale Carnegie
Wise Kindness Quotes
“What we all have in common is an appreciation of kindness and compassion; all the religions have this. Love. We all lean towards love.”
Richard Gere
“Simple kindness may be the most vital key to the riddle of how human beings can live with each other in peace, and care properly for this planet we all share.”
Bo Lozoff
“Give a bowl of rice to a man and you will feed him for a day. Teach him how to grow his own rice and you will save his life.”
Confucius
“Kindness can transform someone’s dark moment with a blaze of light. You’ll never know how much your caring matters. Make a difference for another today.”
Amy Leigh Mercree
“A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles”
Washington Irving
“Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.”
Og Mandino
“From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.”
Arthur Ashe
“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.”
Audrey Hepburn
“The ideas that have lighted my way have been kindness, beauty and truth.”
Albert Einstein
“My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. Continue to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart.”
Maya Angelou
“Kindness is the light that dissolves all walls between souls, families, and nations.”
Paramahansa Yogananda
Uplifting Kindness Quotes
“A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.”
Thomas Carlyle
“Kindness begins with the understanding that we all struggle.”
Charles Glassman
“The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.”
Charles Kuralt
“Kindness extended, received, or observed beneficially impacts the physical health and feelings of everyone involved.”
Wayne Dyer
“Kindness is a passport that opens doors and fashions friends. It softens hearts and molds relationships that can last lifetimes.”
Joseph B. Wirthlin
“The true appreciation of kindness begins when you only one act of human kindness can change a person's life.”
Unknown
“The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard.”
Henry David Thoreau
“Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have”
Margaret Mead
“Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.”
David Mitchell
“We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.”
Charlie Chaplin
“No one is born hating another person…People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
Nelson Mandela
“My religious philosophy is kindness. Try to be kind. That’s something worth achieving.”
Pierce Brosnan
Also check out this post filled with you are enough quotes and plus this post about better days ahead.
Kindness Quotes for a Better World
“Be kind to people on the way up – you’ll meet them again on your way down.”
Jimmy Durante
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
Dalai Lama
“Because that’s what kindness is. It’s not doing something for someone else because they can’t, but because you can.”
Andrew Iskander
“You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love.”
Cheryl Strayed
“When you are kind to others, it not only changes you, it changes the world.”
Harold Kushner
“Real love means loving kindness and compassion, the kind of love that does not have any conditions.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
“Kindness is the only service that will stand the storm of life and not wash out. It will wear well and will be remembered long after the prism of politeness or the complexion of courtesy has faded away.”
Abraham Lincoln
“Goodness is about character – integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people.”
Dennis Prager
“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.”
Audrey Hepburn
“The best part of life is not just surviving, but thriving with passion and compassion and humor and style and generosity and kindness.”
Maya Angelou
“Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.”
Pema Chodron
“Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone. Kindness in another’s trouble, Courage in your own.”
Adam Lindsay Gordon
“If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.”
Kent M. Keith
“Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse.”
Henry Van Dyke
“That is what compassion does. It challenges our assumptions, our sense of self-limitation, worthlessness, of not having a place in the world, our feelings of loneliness and estrangement. These are narrow, constrictive states of mind. As we develop compassion, our hearts open.”
Sharon Salzberg
Kindness Quotes for Kids
“Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen.”
Conan O’Brien
“I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I’ll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else.”
Roald Dahl
“When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope they’ll remember and be kind to someone else. And it’ll become like a wildfire.”
Whoopi Goldberg
“Treat others as you wish to be treated. Don’t just be nice, but be kind to other people. That can be so rewarding.”
Mary Lambert
“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel
“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.”
Henry James
Don't Take My Kindness for Weakness Quotes
“Don’t ever mistake my silence for ignorance, my calmness for acceptance or my kindness for weakness. Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.”
Dalai Lama
“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”
Kahlil Gibran
“Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.”
Albert Schweitzer
“Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Kindness and politeness are not overrated at all. They’re underused.”
Tommy Lee Jones
“Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.”
Theodore Rubin
“You can accomplish by kindness what you cannot by force.”
Publilius Syrus
“People shouldn’t have to earn kindness. They should have to earn cruelty.”
Maggie Stiefvater
“Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”
J. R. R. Tolkien
“You can be rich in spirit, kindness, love and all those things that you can't put a dollar sign on.”
Dolly Parton
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
Dalai Lama
“An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.”
Kahlil Gibran
“Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.”
George Sand
“A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.”
Joseph Joubert
“Believe in yourself. Do what you love. And most importantly, be kind to others, even if you don’t like them.”
Stacy London
“Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.”
Samuel Johnson
“Be kind, don’t judge, and have respect for others. If we can all do this, the world would be a better place.”
Jasmine Guinness
“It takes strength to be kind; it’s not a weakness.”
Daniel Lubetzky
Short Kindness Quotes and Sayings
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
Aesop
“Kindness gives birth to kindness.”
Sophocles
“A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.”
William Arthur Ward
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
Dalai Lama
“A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.”
Dave Barry
“True beauty is born through our actions and aspirations and in the kindness we offer to others.”
Alek Wek
“Deliberately seek opportunities for kindness, sympathy, and patience.”
Evelyn Underhill
“I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.”
Pablo Casais
“And you can always, always, give kindness.”
Anne Frank
“When words are both true and kind, they can change the world.”
Buddha
“For it is in giving that we receive.”
Francis of Assisi
“Be kind to unkind people. They need it the most.”
Ashleigh Brilliant
“One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession.”
Sophocles
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift someone else up.”
Booker T. Washington
“Warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.”
C.G. Jung
“Kindness is the ability and desire to have a positive impact on others.”
RAKtivist
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
Plato
“How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it!”
George Elliston
“Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.”
William Makepeace Thackeray
“Life is short but there is always time for courtesy.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Caring people are surely the best kind of people to spend your life with.”
Unknown
“Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping them up.”
Jesse Jackson
“Extend yourself in kindness to other human beings wherever you can.”
Oprah Winfrey
“Beauty lives with kindness.”
William Shakespeare
“Kindness is always fashionable.”
Amelia E. Barr
“Act with kindness, but do not expect gratitude.”
Confucius
“Kindness is like snow. It beautifies everything it covers.”
Kahlil Gibran
“No one has ever become poor by giving.”
Anne Frank
“Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.”
Robert G. Ingersoll
Kindness Quotes on The Difference You Can Make
“Imagine what our real neighborhoods would be like if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person.”
Mr. Rogers
“One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.”
John F. Kennedy
“Always try to be a little kinder than is necessary.”
J.M. Barrie
“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“If you choose to be any kind of person, choose to be a kind person first.”
Unknown
“A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.”
John Ruskin
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
Edith Wharton
“When words are both true and kind, they can change the world.”
Buddha
“Forget injuries; never forget kindness.”
Confucius
“Never be so busy as not to think of others.”
Mother Teresa
“Take time to be kind and to say ‘thank you.’”
Zig Ziglar
Random Acts of Kindness Quotes
“Kindness makes a fellow feel good whether it’s being done to him or by him.”
Frank A. Clark
“Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.”
H. Jackson Brown Jr.
“The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”
Mahatma Gandhi
“Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.”
Princess Diana
“Let us practice random kindness and acts of senseless beauty to all we meet.”
Paul Keller
“The love, kindnesses, and value we have given authentically to others will be our remaining treasures at the end of life.”
Steve Brunkhorst
“Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.”
Mother Teresa
“Yet, at the same time, we see extreme acts of kindness, selfless acts of courage and people doing all manner of good in the world.”
Elizabeth Edwards
“Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change.”
Bob Kerrey
“The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.”
William Wordsworth
“Kind hearts are the gardens, kind thoughts are the roots, kind words are the flowers, kind deeds are the fruits. Take care of your garden. And keep out the weeds. Fill it with sunshine, kind words, and kind deeds.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Kindness starts an inward feeling that allows you to experience perfect virtue without needing to do more. The kindness received is often enough to create more healing. All it takes is that one small act of kindness to give someone their peace.”
Unknown
Positive Kindness Quotes and Sayings
“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.”
Kahlil Gibran
“Always have a willing hand to help someone, you might be the only one that does.”
Roy T. Bennett
“How do we change the world? One random act of kindness at a time.”
Morgan Freeman
“The good thing, no, the wonderful thing, is that you can choose to be kind and do a small act of kindness any time you want.”
Unknown
“Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.”
Blaise Pascal
“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
Leo Buscaglia
“Be nice to strangers. Be nice even when it doesn’t matter.”
Sam Altman
“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
Desmond Tutu
“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
Dalai Lama
“Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.”
Eric Hoffer
“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”
Mother Teresa
“If you have kindness in your heart, you offer acts of kindness to touch the hearts of others wherever you go—whether they are random or planned. Kindness becomes a way of life.”
Roy T. Bennett
“Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.”
Anne Herbert
“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
Kindness Quotes on Loving Yourself
“I've been searching for ways to heal myself, and I've found that kindness is the best way.”
Lady Gaga
“Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.”
Brené Brown
“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”
Lucille Ball
“Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves.”
Pema Chodron
“When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.”
Jean Shinoda Bolen
“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”
Maya Angelou
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”
Mark Twain
“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn't worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
Louise L. Hay
“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn't try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn't need others' approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.”
Lao-Tzu
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
Buddha
“If you feel “burnout” setting in, if you feel demoralized and exhausted, it is best, for the sake of everyone, to withdraw and restore yourself.”
Dalai Lama
“You're always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company.”
Diane Von Furstenberg
“Loving yourself isn’t vanity. It’s sanity.”
Katrina Mayer
You may also find these two posts helpful: 71 Self Care Quotes to Help You to Take Care of Yourself and 101 Inspiring Self Esteem and Self Love Quotes.
Kindness Quotes to Help You Say Thank You
“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
Leo Buscaglia
“Your acts of kindness are iridescent wings of divine love, which linger and continue to uplift others long after your sharing.”
Rumi
“The words of kindness are more healing to a drooping heart than balm or honey.”
Sarah Fielding
“A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.”’
Saint Basil
“A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.”
Steve Maraboli
“Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.”
Scott Adams
“Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.”
Barbara De Angelis
If you found these kindness quotes helpful then please share them with a friend or a family member via social media or email.
Want even more inspirational quotes and tips to help you live a kinder life filled with more compassion? Check out this post with my own top tips on how to spread kindness in your world, this one about improving your self-esteem and this post with my favorite tips for living a life of self-kindness.
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