Kindness is the quality of being considerate, compassionate, generous, gentle, and caring towards others without expecting anything in return. Often described as a virtue, kindness is also a strength—in fact, it may be one of humanity's greatest superpowers. Kindness enriches our relationships with friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers. Kindness opens our hearts to perfect strangers, both those we encounter in our daily lives and those who live continents away. What's more, kindness is good for our health—a finding backed by numerous studies and brain science. Practicing kindness increases levels of oxytocin and serotonin, the "feel-good" hormones, and decreases feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression. Perhaps best of all, kindness is contagious: kind acts often have a ripple effect.
So, why not make a pact with yourself to be a kinder person? And whenever you need a little encouragement or gentle reminder, turn to these 25 quotes from authors who understand the power of kindness and express it quite remarkably.
1. "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about." -,
2. "There is no wrong way to perform an act of kindness." -,
3. "You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you." -,
4. "But remember, boy, that a kind act can sometimes be as powerful as a sword." -,
5. "You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too." -,
6. "Be a little kinder than you have to." -,
7. "You know, some things don't matter that much...Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart—now, that matters." -,
8. "When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less." -,
9. "All I'm saying is, kindness don't have no boundaries." -,
10. "Because I haven't yet learned the simplest and most important thing of all: the world is difficult, and we are all breakable. So just be kind." -,
11. "People shouldn't have to earn kindness. They should have to earn cruelty." -,
12. "You stand for what is right, Lina, without the expectation of gratitude or reward." -,
13. "Our souls may be consumed by shadows, but that doesn't mean we have to behave as monsters." -,
14. "To belittle, you have to be little." -,
15. "You can't worry about the rest of the world, never mind the rest of the universe. All you can do is look to your left and your right and try to be kind to whoever is there." -,
16. "And so I try to be kind to everything I see, and in everything I see, I see him." -,
17. "Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father's eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver." -,
18. "We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over." -,
19. "People want to be good. Deep down. Kind. The problem of course is that it isn't always possible to be kind to idiots, because they're idiots." -,
20. "What virtue is there in a man who demonstrates goodness because he has been bred to it? It is his habit from youth. But a man who has known unkindness and want, for him to be kind and charitable to those who have been the cause of his misfortunes, that is a virtuous man." -,
21. "To reprove a harm-doer, put him to shame by doing a good deed in return." -,
22. "Time itself is created through deeds of true kindness." -,
23. "There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham." -,
24. "One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls." -,
25. "Anger is effortless. Kindness is hard. Try to exert yourself." -,