Kindness matters.
Every act of kindness you show can make a meaningful difference in the lives of others. Living out kindness on a daily basis takes practice, but leads to a lifestyle and mindset shift that implores us to meet the world — and each other — with greater empathy and justice.
Kindness asks us to extend our approach beyond niceties and good manners, and into transformative action, compassionate and intentional inclusion, and empowering solutions.
Kindness is a choice, a muscle we all flex, and could frankly use a little more of our attention.
To help us do so, we’ve collected the best quotes about kindness. We encourage you to share and use this list to help fill the world with more kindness.
You might also like:
- How to celebrate World Kindness Day
- How to celebrate Random Acts of Kindness Day
- The best ideas for random acts of kindness
The Best Kindness Quotes
Famous Kindness Quotes
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
― Ian MacLaren
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
― Aesop
“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
— Dalai Lama
“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
― Archbishop Desmond Tutu
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt
“It takes courage to be kind.”
— Maya Angelou
“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.”
— Seneca
“If we are asking for the world to be kind, we must first ask what are we doing to add more kindness to the world. If we are asking for the world to be more loving, we must first ask what are we doing to add more love to the world. We are the vessels for the things we seek.”
— Joél Leon
“How do we change the world? One random act of kindness at a time.”
— Morgan Freeman
You might also like: Quotes about doing good | Quotes about making a difference | Quotes about activism | Quotes about giving back | Quotes about caring
Inspirational Quotes
“I have seen human beings do and become terrible things as they destroy the world. I have also learned that only those things made of kindness, justice, and hope can save the world.”
— Danté Stewart
“Quick reminder:
Kindness and justice are not synonymous.
Be kind.
And advocate and work for justice.
Lives depend on it.”
— Bernice King
“Kindness is giving hope to those who think they are all alone in this world.”
— RAKtivist
“Courage. Kindness. Friendship. Character. These are the qualities that define us as human beings, and propel us, on occasion, to greatness.”
― R.J. Palacio, Wonder
“Kindness can only be repaid with kindness. It can’t be repaid with expressions like ‘thank you’ and then forgotten.”
— Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala
“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.”
— Abraham Joshua Heschel
“Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”
— Dr. Seuss
“When you are kind to others, it not only changes you, it changes the world.”
— Harold Kushner
“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
— Jane Goodall
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
— Margaret Mead
“The best life strategy? Be loving, be kind, be intentional, and be authentically you — not the shadow version of self masquerading and parading as you. The version with all the flaws, the baggage, and the love; that you that exists in spite of whatever the world may throw at you.”
— Joél Leon
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
“Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.”
― Roy T. Bennett
Related: Quotes About Hope
On Compassion
“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”
― Kahlil Gibran
“With all of the bad things that are happening in the world right now, I think we need a message of togetherness and true unity. I believe that starts with personal reflection and then we can find kindness toward each other.”
― Marielle Heller
“I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.”
― Mother Teresa, A Gift for God: Prayers and Meditations
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
― Dalai Lama
“When words are both true and kind, they can change the world.”
― Buddha
“If a person seems wicked, do not cast him away. Awaken him with your words, elevate him with your deeds, repay his injury with your kindness. Do not cast him away; cast away his wickedness.”
― Lao-Tzu
Related: Quotes About Humanity
On the Religion of Kindness
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
― Dalai Lama
“The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
“I honor the sanctity of all religions — I'm not here to put them down. But the only religion that I personally embrace is the religion of kindness.”
― Leslie Jordan
Related: Quotes About Making a Difference
On Empathy
“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
“Everyone on Earth, they’d tell us, was carrying around an unseen history, and that alone deserved some tolerance.”
— Michelle Obama, Becoming
“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
“Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference.”
— Helen James
“I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.”
— Maya Angelou
Related: Quotes About Caring
Short Quotes For Kids
“No one has ever become poor by giving.”
― Anne Frank
“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
“Be a little kinder than you have to.”
― E. Lockhart, We Were Liars
“Forget injuries; never forget kindness.”
― Confucius
“Always try to be a little kinder than is necessary.”
― J M Barrie
“If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it.”
― Lucy Larcom
“A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.”
― William Arthur Ward
“Kindness is always in stock” ― Katy Perry, in a tweet
“How beautiful a day can be, when kindness touches it!”
― George Elliston
“Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud”
― Maya Angelou
“In the end only kindness matters”
― Jewel
“We rise by lifting others.”
― Robert Ingersoll
“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
“To kindness and love, the things we need most!”
― The Grinch
Related: Short Quotes
Showing Kindness To Others
“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
― Mark Twain
“The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a Woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she knows.”
― Audrey Hepburn
“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”
― Lao-Tzu
“Being kind means responding to the needs of others — and people can be kind, no matter how old or young we are.”
― Fred Rogers
“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
“One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession.”
― Sophocles
“True beauty is born through our actions and aspirations and in the kindness we offer to others.”
― Alek Wek
“It takes so much energy to be mean. It takes much less to be nice.”
— Leah Thomas
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou
“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
“The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good and how he treats people who can't fight back.”
― Abigail Van Buren
“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
Related: Quotes About Activism
Showing Kindness To Animals
“You can judge a man's true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.”
― Paul McCartney
“Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Basis Of Morality
“So often when you start talking about kindness to animals someone comments that starving and mistreated children should come first. The issue can’t be divided like that. It isn’t a choice between children and animals. It’s our duty to care for both. Kindness is the important thing. Kids and animals are our responsibility.”
— Minnie Pearl
“It takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal”
— Joaquin Phoenix
Showing Kindness To Yourself
“You is kind. You is smart. You is important,”
― Kathryn Stockett, The Help
“Be kind to yourself, to others and everything around you.”
— Alexandrto a Stoddard
“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”
— Jack Kornfield
“Be kind to yourself this evening. Buy something for yourself. Treat yourself to a meal. Look at the mirror and give a smile to yourself.”
— Yoko Ono, in a tweet
“You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
— Louise L. Hay
“Being kind to others is a way of being good to yourself.”
— Harold S. Kushner
“Ask yourself: have you been kind today? Make kindness your modus operandi and change your world.”
— Annie Lennox
“Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves”
— James Matthew Barrie
Related: Quotes About Self Care
More Kindness Quotes
“Sometimes it takes only one act of kindness and caring to change a person’s life.”
— Jackie Chan
“To extend yourself in kindness to anybody is an extension in kindness in the world.”
— Oprah Winfrey
“Kindness isn’t a tactic. It’s a command… Civility and decency aren’t incompatible with ‘taking sides.’ It doesn’t require anyone to fold in the face of angry opposition. Kindness doesn’t conflict with conviction, and our commitments to kindness are biblically inseparable from our commitments to justice. We aren’t to choose between them, we’re to embrace them both.”
— David French, on faith
“The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been kindness, beauty, and truth”
— Albert Einstein
“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
“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members, a heart of grace, and a soul generated by love.”
— Coretta Scott King
“Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.”
— William Makepeace Thackeray
“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the figure of a free people. a nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
— Edith Wharton
“Kind hearts are the gardens. Kind thoughts are the roots. Kind words are the blossoms. Kind deeds are the fruits.”
— Kirpal Singh
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give”
— Winston Churchill
“It doesn't cost me anything to be kind.”
— Paddington
