No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

Aesop (620 BC - 560 BC), The Lion and the Mouse

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. The trite¹ subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible².

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

There are no thanks for a kindness, which has been delayed.

Anonymous³

Compassion⁴ is the basis of all morality.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)

There is no duty more obligatory⁵ than the repayment⁶ of kindness.

Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.

Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.

Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC), The Confucian Analects

I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer⁷ or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Ettiene De Grellet

Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation⁸, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.

George Sand (1804 - 1876)

Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable⁹ ways it can change someone else's life forever.

Margaret Cho, weblog, 03-11-04

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Tennessee Williams (1911 - 1983), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

The Dalai Lama (1935 - )

When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope they'll remember and be kind to someone else. And it'll become like a wildfire.

Whoopi Goldberg

Yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness.

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Macbeth", Act 1 scene 5

That best portion of a good man's life,

His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.

William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)