Inspiring Quotes and Wonderful Words

"Here is an eccentric thought that one day might save your life: happiness needs no reason!" - Robert Holden

You're alive. Do something. The directive in life, the moral imperative was so uncomplicated. It could be expressed in single words, not complete sentences. It sounded like this: Look. Listen. Choose. Act.
- Barbara Hall, A Summons to New Orleans, 2000

I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's.
- William Blake (1757 - 1827)

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.
- Ben Stein

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
- Brendan Gill

Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.
- Christopher Morley (1890 - 1957)

Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
- Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902)

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

The unexamined life is not worth living.
- Socrates (469 BC - 399 BC), in Plato, Dialogues, Apology

The purpose of life is to fight maturity.
- Dick Werthimer

Life is a long lesson in humility.
- James M. Barrie (1860 - 1937)

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
- John Lennon (1940 - 1980), "Beautiful Boy"

Wisdom doesn't automatically come with old age. Nothing does - except wrinkles. It's true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first place.
- Abigail Van Buren (1918 - ), 1978

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
- Dr. Seuss (1904 - 1991)

Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.
~Robert Brault

I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.
~Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

Always be a little kinder than necessary.
~James M. Barrie

If you haven't any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble. ~Bob Hope

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.
~Jesse Jackson

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.
~Charles H. Spurgeon

It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
~Author Unknown

I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.
~William Penn

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.
~Benjamin Disraeli

How beautiful a day can be
When kindness touches it!
~George Elliston

Sometimes someone says something really small, and it just fits right into this empty place in your heart.
~From the television show My So-Called Life

Something that has always puzzled me all my life is why, when I am in special need of help, the good deed is usually done by somebody on whom I have no claim. ~William Feather

What this world needs is a new kind of army - the army of the kind. ~Cleveland Amory

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
~Dalai Lama

During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. "Absolutely," the professor said. "In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello." I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.
~Joann C. Jones

I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble. ~Rudyard Kipling

Don't be yourself - be someone a little nicer.
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

There is no greater loan than a sympathetic ear.
~Frank Tyger

Never miss an opportunity to make others happy, even if you have to leave them alone in order to do it.
~Author Unknown

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
~Mark Twain

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.
~Seneca

A kind word is like a Spring day.
~Russian Proverb

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
~Samuel Johnson

There is one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life - reciprocity.
~Confucius

The best practical advice I can give to the present generation is to practice the virtue which the Christians call love.
~Bertrand Russell

If we cannot be clever, we can always be kind.
~Alfred Fripp

To give and then not feel that one has given is the very best of all ways of giving. ~Max Beerbohm

The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.
~John E. Southard

Don't wait for people to be friendly, show them how.
~Author Unknown

The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway.
~Henry Boye

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
~Abraham Joshua Heschel

Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.
~Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Love someone who doesn't deserve it.
~Author Unknown

The more sympathy you give, the less you need.
~Malcolm S. Forbes

It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens. ~Baha'u'llah

There are no traffic jams when you go the extra mile.
~Attributed to both Zig Ziglar and Dr. Kenneth McFarland

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. ~Nelson Henderson

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.
~H.L. Mencken

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. ~James Matthew Barrie

In about the same degree as you are helpful, you will be happy.
~Karl Reiland

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
~Plato

By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.
~Winston Churchill

Real generosity is doing something nice for someone who will never find out. ~Frank A. Clark

The kindest word in all the world is the unkind word, unsaid.
~Author Unknown

The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.
~Charles Kuralt, On the Road With Charles Kuralt

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. ~Epictetus

Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something.
~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The best way to knock the chip off your neighbor's shoulder is to pat him on the back.
~Author Unknown

Open your heart - open it wide; someone is standing outside.
~Quoted in Believe: A Christmas Treasury by Mary Engelbreit

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

Kindness is the greatest wisdom.
~Author Unknown

A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.
~Dave Barry, "Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn"

Life is short but there is always time for courtesy.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Social Aims

One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind.
~Malayan Proverb

Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree.
~Marian Wright Edelman

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
~Leo Buscaglia

A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses.
~Chinese Proverb

As the bus slowed down at the crowded bus stop, the Pakistani bus conductor leaned from the platform and called out, "Six only!" The bus stopped. He counted on six passengers, rang the bell, and then, as the bus moved off, called to those left behind: "So sorry, plenty of room in my heart - but the bus is full." He left behind a row of smiling faces.
It's not what you do, it's the way that you do it.
~The Friendship Book of Francis Gay, 1977

Have you had a kindness shown?
Pass it on;
'Twas not given for thee alone,
Pass it on;
Let it travel down the years,
Let it wipe another's tears,
'Til in Heaven the deed appears -
Pass it on.
~Henry Burton, Pass It On

Make it a practice to judge persons and things in the most favorable light at all times and under all circumstances.
~Saint Vincent de Paul

Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another's trouble, Courage in your own.
~Adam Lindsay Gordon

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.
~George Washington Carver

You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
~John Wooden

Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns.
~Author Unknown

The best portion of a good man's life - his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.
~William Wordsworth

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you - not because they are nice, but because you are.
~Author Unknown