A. C. Grayling (1949) English philosopher
Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), Chapter 2, “Moral Education” (p. 10)
Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech (2012)
Context: Of the sweets of adversity, and let me say that these are not numerous, I have found the sweetest, the most precious of all, is the lesson I learnt on the value of kindness. Every kindness I received, small or big, convinced me that there could never be enough of it in our world. To be kind is to respond with sensitivity and human warmth to the hopes and needs of others. Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart. Kindness can change the lives of people.
A. C. Grayling (1949) English philosopher
Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), Chapter 2, “Moral Education” (p. 10)
Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer
Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead
Michael Swanwick book Stations of the Tide
Source: Stations of the Tide (1991), Chapter 1, “The Leviathan in Flight” (p. 14)
Gretchen Rubin (1966) American writer
Source: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832–1914) English literary critic and poet
"Prophetic Pictures at Venice II: The Temptation", p. 199.
The Coming of Love and Other Poems (1897)
Isabel II do Reino Unido (1926–2022) queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations
1957 Christmas Broadcast; quoted on royal website http://www.royal.gov.uk/imagesandbroadcasts/thequeenschristmasbroadcasts/christmasbroadcasts/christmasbroadcast1957.aspx (25 December 1957)
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
1920s, Notes on Democracy (1926)
Context: Liberty means self-reliance, it means resolution, it means enterprise, it means the capacity for doing without. The free man is one who has won a small and precarious territory from the great mob of his inferiors, and is prepared and ready to defend it and make it support him. All around him are enemies, and where he stands there is no friend. He can hope for little help from other men of his own kind, for they have battles of their own to fight. He has made of himself a sort of god in his little world, and he must face the responsibilities of a god, and the dreadful loneliness.