Quotes about kindness (7466 quotes, page 10)

“The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

Error

“The kind of batting that he has got when he is on song, he just takes your breath away.”

Sanju Samson (1994) Indian cricketer

About him
Source: Sanjay Manjrekar on Samson's batting. Samson takes your breath away- Sanjay Manjrekar https://www.indiatvnews.com/sports/cricket/pant-wins-you-games-in-10-minutes-samson-takes-your-breath-away-sanjay-manjrekar-641243

“In a scientific worldview, man determines his own fate by fighting for freedom from any kind of spiritual enslavement.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

Freedom , Fate , Fight

“Holy Scripture presents a kind of mirror to the eyes of the mind, so that our inner face may be seen in it. There we learn our own ugliness, there our own beauty.”

Pope Gregory I (540–604) Pope from 590 to 604

Morals in the Book of Job, 553d, as translated in Cultural Performances in Medieval France (2007), p. 129
Original: (la) Scriptura sacra mentis oculis quasi quoddam speculum opponitur, ut interna nostra facies in ipsa videatur. Ibi etenim foeda, ibi pulchra nostra cognoscimus.

Beauty , Learning

“The law, the primal law, the moral absolute, the divine command is the preservation of one's own kind.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Crossing the Rubicon
Focus Fourteen

Law

“The great nature philosophers, then, after meticulous study of nature determined that the first, the primal, the absolute and highest law is preservation of one's own kind.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Crossing the Rubicon
Focus Fourteen

Study , Law , Nature

“I do see one large and grievous kind of ignorance, separate from the rest, and as weighty as all the other parts put together. Thinking that one knows a thing when one does not know it. Through this, I believe, all the mistakes of the mind are caused in all of us.”

Plato book Sophist

229c
Sophist

Thinking , Parting

“Looking back, it's like, wow, those few minutes just made such an impact. We have that much time to kind of prove yourself. I think that's one thing that makes skating so exciting, because it's just intense, and it's quick, and one little slip can mean the difference between placing or not placing.”

Kristi Yamaguchi (1971) American figure skater

"Kristi Yamaguchi looks back on 1992 Olympic gold, talks Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan" in TODAY https://www.today.com/news/kristi-yamaguchi-looks-back-1992-olympic-gold-talks-tonya-harding-t122373 (6 February 2018)

Time , Thinking

“I’d never skated just to win a gold medal before; I’d never put that kind of pressure on myself.”

Kristi Yamaguchi (1971) American figure skater

"Kristi Yamaguchi, Unlaced" in Shondaland https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/a14436692/kristi-yamaguchi-interview/ (3 January 2018)

“You have to figure it out you have to be mom and a professional athlete. There’s a lot of athletes going to Tokyo that are also fellow mom athletes and I’m excited to catch up with them and kind of just represent all the moms, soccer moms united.”

Alex Morgan (1989) American soccer player

"‘Soccer Mom’ Alex Morgan Back And Looking For Gold In Tokyo" https://www.teamusa.org/News/2021/July/08/Soccer-Mom-Alex-Morgan-Back-And-Looking-For-Gold-In-Tokyo (July 8, 2021)

Moms

“The love of God is the kind of love that doesn't expect to be loved!”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God , Love

“The true meaning of kindness reveals itself to us whenever we do a very kind act.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“I beg to assure you that I have never written you, or spoken to you, in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as in my most anxious judgment, I consistently can. But you must act.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Source: 1860s, Telegram to George B. McClellan (1862)

Feeling

“So I kept pulling my punches. And later I realised that was a mistake. Life doesn’t spare the kind of people who I write about, so I felt like it would be dishonest to spare my characters in that way.”

Jesmyn Ward (1977) American writer

Source: On how she “protected” her characters in her first novel Where the Line Bleeds in “Jesmyn Ward: ‘Black girls are silenced, misunderstood and underestimated'” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/11/jesmyn-ward-home-mississippi-living-with-addiction-poverty-racism in The Guardian (2018 May 11)

Life , People , Way

“Security is a kind of death.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Death

“There were all kinds of things I was afraid of at first, ranging from grizzly bears to 'mean' horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Chapter II The Vigor of Life http://www.bartleby.com/55/2.html
1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913)

Horse

“I found marriage somewhat stifling. I don't know that I am the kind of man who ought to be married.”

Burt Lancaster (1913–1994) American actor and producer

other quotes

Marriage

“We must use our brains to overcome our brains. You are the solution to this crazy world we find ourselves in. Do everything you can to reach others. Teach. Elevate. Encourage critical thinking. But do it with kindness and understanding. People who believe crazy things are only guilty of being human. Remember this and show compassion.”

Guy P. Harrison (1963) American skeptic author

People , World , Understanding , Thinking

“The people should never be deceived, under any pretext or for any purpose. It would not only be criminal but detrimental to the revolutionary cause, for deception of any kind, by its very nature, is shortsighted, petty, narrow, always sewn with rotten threads, so that it inevitably tears and is exposed.”

Mikhail Bakunin book Statism and Anarchy

Source: Statism and Anarchy (1873), "Appendix A"

People , Nature , Tear

“Men never respect what they have made themselves. This is why an elective king never possesses the moral power of a hereditary sovereign, because he is not noble enough, that is to say he does not possess that kind of greatness independent of men and that is the work of time.”

Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat

"Of Founders and the Political Constitution," p. 72
Against Rousseau (1795)

Time , Men

“For not one of us asserts that “God partakes of form or colour.” Nor does He even partake of “motion,” because He stands firm, and His nature is permanent, and He invites the righteous man also to do the same, saying: “But as for thee, stand thou here by Me.” And if certain expressions indicate a kind of motion, as it were, on His part, such as this, “They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,” we must understand them in this way, that it is by sinners that God is understood as moving, or as we understand the “sleep” of God, which is taken in a figurative sense, or His “anger,” or any other similar attribute. But “God does not partake even of substance.””

Origen book Contra Celsum

Against Celsus, Book 6, Chapter 64

Anger , Understanding , Nature , Sense

“You can't live a positive life with a negative mind and if you have a positive outcome you have a positive income and just to have more positivity and just to kind of laugh it off.”

Miley Cyrus (1992) American actor and singer-songwriter

Life

“When you come from your memory, you create one kind of experience. When you come from your intention, you create another kind of experience altogether. Always, with your choices, you are answering a single question: Who am I? Every act is an act of self-definition.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Question , Memory

“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.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

Incorrectly attributed to Tolkien. It is a line from the Hobbit movie that did not appear in the books.

Evil , Love

“We know that kindness is always pleasant and reassuring. But strangely not everyone thinks and acts this way.”

Titon Rahmawan

Thinking , Way

“If there is any treasure that will last until we die, it is love, care, sincerity, acceptance, kindness, friendship, integrity, wisdom and the memories we leave in the hearts of others.”

Titon Rahmawan

Friendship , Sincerity , Memory , Wisdom

“I got what I needed instead of what I wanted and that's just about the best kind of luck you can have.”

Cormac McCarthy The Sunset Limited

Source: The Sunset Limited

“Mr. Solomon was right the worst kind of torture is watching someone you love get hurt.”

Ally Carter I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Source: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Love , Hurt

“I don't know if you heard, but I kind of run this place.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

“But also I say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it’s done right, is a kind of holiness.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

"Poppies"
Blue Iris (2004)

Light , Happiness

“There are two essential kinds of loneliness: that of not having found someone to love, and that of having been deprived of the one you did love. The first kind is worse. Nothing can compare to the loneliness of the soul in adolescence.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Source: Levels of Life

Love , Soul , Loneliness

“Sanguine felt the ridiculous urge to reach out and poke him, just to see if he’d react, but he’d seen that kind of anger before. It was the quiet kind. The dangerous kind.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Last Stand of Dead Men

Anger

“Darkness as well as light. Or do I mean darkness, another kind of light? Lucifer would say so, and I have a weakness for fallen angels.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Art and Lies

Angels , Light

“I kind of lost track of time…"
"For two hours?"
Elend nodded sheepishly. "There were books involved.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Variant: Elend: I kind of lost track of time…
Breeze: For two hours?
Elend: There were books involved.
Source: The Well of Ascension

Books , Time

“Now is a time for, dare I say it, kindness. I thought being extremely smart would take care of it. But I see I have been found out.”

Margaret Edson Wit

Source: Wit

Time

“A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.”

Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French writer and philosopher

A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books
Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988)

Beauty

“Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

“I know he was desperate. That makes people do all kinds of crazy things.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

People

“Indian believes they ain't but two sins… bein a coward… and turnin agin yer own kind.”

Forrest Carter (1925–1979) Political speechwriter, politician, novelist, memoirist

Source: The Outlaw Josey Wales

“Life is messy. Would that every puzzle piece fell into place, every word was kind, every accident happy, but such is not the case. Life is messy”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Source: The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror

Life , Happiness

“I'm not the marrying kind -"
St. Vincent snorted. "No man is. Marriage is a female invention.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Mine Till Midnight

Marriage

“When others demand that we become the people they want us to be, they force us to destroy the person we really are. It's a subtle kind of murder… the most loving parents and relatives commit this murder with smiles on their faces.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Love , People , Smile , Parent

“I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“I am not getting you a brain, because I am not that kind of assistant, Dr. Frankenstein.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Kiss of Death

“It was beautiful in a harsh I'm-going-to-gut-you-like-a-fish kind of way.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Beauty , Way , Fish

“She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just takes time.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Sadness , Hope , Time

“Because being part of him isn't just anything. It's kind of everything.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Parting

“There are certain kinds of silence that make you walk on air.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Silence

“He was one of those earnest, persevering dancers--the kind that have taken twelve correspondence lessons.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Source: The Man With Two Left Feet and Other Stories

“I'll have to admit, he really does have quite a smile. Kind of heart-stopping, especially as it comes out of nowhere.
I mean… you know. If your heart was in the kind of place to be stopped.”

Sophie Kinsella book I've Got Your Number

Source: I've Got Your Number

Smile , Heart

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Essays
Source: Kenyon College Commencement Speech, April 21, 2005, published as This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life.

People , Way , Effort , Freedom

“Pain and suffering, they are a secret. Kindness and love, they are a secret. But I have learned that kindness and love can pay for pain and suffering.”

Alan Paton (1903–1988) South African writer and activist

Source: Cry, The Beloved Country

Love , Pain , Secret , Suffering

“Inside the half-basement, they found Wroth alongside Garreth, grappling to hold up the ceiling.
The vampire's voice was incongruously calm when he asked, "What kind of idiot would find this a worthy plan?”

Kresley Cole book A Hunger Like No Other

Source: A Hunger Like No Other

“It was the kind of kiss I could never tell my friends about out loud. It was the kind of kiss that made me know I was never so happy in my whole life.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Variant: And she kissed me. It was the kind of kiss that I could never tell my friends about out loud. It was the kind of kiss that made me know that I was never so happy in my whole life.
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Life , Kiss , Happiness

“Ammu said that human beings were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of things one could get used to.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

“Anger exceeding limits causes fear and excessive kindness eliminates respect.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Fear , Anger

“You don't need to worry, though. He's not my type."
"I don't think I've ever heard a girl say that before," said Simon. "I thought Jace was the kind of guy who was everyone's type.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Guy , Girl , Thinking

“Don't you think 'Mark is kind of a weird name for a Shadowhunter?" Julian was saying as Emma approached. "I mean, if you really think about it. It's confusing. 'Put a Mark on me, Mark.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Thinking

“Nature is orderly. That which appears to be chaotic in nature is only a more complex kind of order.”

Gary Snyder (1930) American poet

Nature , Appearance

“She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you'll know loss the rest of your life.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Life , God , Loss

“Is there some kind of rule for when Sam should be a boy and when he's a Wolf?"
"A Wolf lifts his leg and yellows up the snow. A boy has to use the toilet."
"And that will work?"
"Only if he needs to pee.”

Anne Bishop book Written in Red

Source: Written in Red

Boy , Wolf

“What kind of dog is that?" I would always give the same answer: "She's a brown dog." Similarly, when the question is raised, "What kind of God do you believe in?" my answer is easy: "I believe in a magnificent God.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

God , Dogs , Question

“It really kind of sucked to be close to someone for so long and then suddenly not be anything anymore.”

Cecily von Ziegesar book Reckless

Source: Reckless

“Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Variant: Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned

Beauty , Intelligence

“I looked like a woman in glasses, but I had dreams of leading a very different kind of life, the life of a woman who would not wear glasses, the kind of woman I saw from a distance now and then in a bar.”

Lydia Davis (1947) American writer

Source: The Collected Stories

Life , Dreams

“If you don't believe what I'm telling you, then ask yourself this: would any decent, kind-hearted individual become a writer? Of course not.”

Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Source: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Heart

“Enemies will kill you with a knife in the back. Friends will kill you with kindness. Either way you're dead.”

Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer

Source: Kill the Dead

Way , Dead

“When a man is one of a kind, he will be lonely wherever he is.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Lonesome Gods (1983), Ch. 57
Context: “You are complex.”
“No. Within this giant house of flesh lives a quiet man who would prefer working at a trade. Or perhaps he is a poet whose dreams are too large for his words. “My home is among the mountains. Men destroy what they do not understand, as they destroyed the son of God when he chose to walk among them. I do not wish to be understood. I wish to be left alone. Your Johannes has done this. He is a kind man, a thoughtful man.”
“Are you never lonely?”
“When would I not be lonely? When a man is one of a kind, he will be lonely wherever he is. I am a man apart but have become adjusted to it. I have the mountains, and I have my books. I also have the friendship of Johannes.”

“We stood there, looking at each other, saying nothing. But it was the kind of nothing that meant everything.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Goodbye

“The best kind of friend is the kind you sit with, never say a word and walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you ever had.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Feeling

“She was so fed up with unrequited love and platonic love and all the other kinds of love that weren’t passionate, romantic, can’t-live-without-you, I-have-to-have-you-right-now, the-beat-of-your-heart-matches-the-beat-of-mine love.”

Sarra Manning (1950) British writer

Source: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Love , Passion , Heart

“That’s kind of a leap, but the Russian judge gave you a nine point five for style, so OK.”

Rachel Caine book Glass Houses

Variant: That's kind of a leap, but the Russian judge gave you a nine point five for style, so okay.
Source: Glass Houses

“There's a certain kind of lonely man who rejects love, because he believes that anyone who offers it wouldn't be a lover worth having.”

Gene Wolfe book There Are Doors

Source: There Are Doors

Love , Lovers

“Woman, you are a thousand kinds of fool.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

Fools

“I feel dead, wasted, awful, broken and useless. It's not the kind of feeling you forget.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Feeling , Dead , Forgetting

“It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.”

David Hume book Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary

Part I, Essay 2: Of the Liberty of the Press
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741-2; 1748)
Context: It is a very comfortable reflection to the lovers of liberty, that this peculiar privilege of Britain is of a kind that cannot easily be wrested from us, but must last as long as our government remains, in any degree, free and independent. It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal upon them by degrees, and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes, in order to be received. But, if the liberty of the press ever be lost, it must be lost at once. The general laws against sedition and libelling are at present as strong as they possibly can be made. Nothing can impose a farther restraint, but either the clapping an Imprimatur upon the press, or the giving to the court very large discretionary powers to punish whatever displeases them. But these concessions would be such a bare-faced violation of liberty, that they will probably be the last efforts of a despotic government. We may conclude, that the liberty of Britain is gone for ever when these attempts shall succeed.