This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.
Justice | Kindness | Recompense |
Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
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.
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
We hate the kindness which we understand.
We may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindness about us at little expense. Some of them will fall on good ground, and grow up into benevolence in the minds of others, and all of them will bear fruit of happiness in the bosom whence they spring. Once blest are all the virtues; twice blest, sometimes.
Benevolence | Courtesy | Good | Kindness | Little | Will | Happiness |
Love and kindness are here all the time, somewhere, in fact, everywhere. Usually our ability to touch them and be touched by them lies buried below our own fears and hurts, below our greed and our hatreds, below our desperate clinging to the illusion that we are truly separate and alone.
Truth is like the stars; it does not appear except from behind obscurity of the night. Truth is like all beautiful things in the world; it does not disclose its desirability except to those who first feel the influence of falsehood. Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.
Falsehood | Influence | Kindness | Life | Life | Obscurity | Obscurity | People | Truth | World |
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
Kindness | Silence | Toleration |
The kindness of the people is but an empty shell containing no gem or precious pearl. With two hearts do people live; a small one of deep softness, the other of steel. And kindness is too often a shield, and generosity too often a sword.
Generosity | Kindness | People |
Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.
Despair | Kindness | Resolution | Strength | Tenderness | Weakness |
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
How good it would be if we could learn to be rigorous in judgment of ourselves, and gentle in our judgment of our neighbors! In remedying defects, kindness works best with others, sternness with ourselves. It is easy to make allowances for our faults, but dangerous; hard to make allowances for others’ faults, but wise.
Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL
I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness.
Kindness | Miracles | Unkindness | Work |
The true source of cheerfulness is benevolence. The pursuits of mankind are commonly frigid and contemptible, and the mistake comes, at last, to be detected. But virtue is a charm that never fades. The soul that perceptually overflows with kindness and sympathy will always be cheerful.
Benevolence | Cheerfulness | Kindness | Mankind | Mistake | Soul | Sympathy | Virtue | Virtue | Will |
There seemed to be nothing she could add to the material things we already had. And so she offered something of far greater value: a gift of the heart, an act of kindness carried out in our name.
It’s about whether we’re going to be able to look forward to our descendants and hand this world over to them in much better shape, so they will look back on us with kindness and with praise – rather than cursing us for our apathy, or our narcissism, or our refusal to stand up tall for justice and freedom in the world.
Apathy | Better | Freedom | Justice | Kindness | Praise | Will | World |