Kindness Quotes to Inspire Positivity and Connection

Practicing kindness isn't just good for the recipient; it's good for your health. Dmitry Demidovich / Shutterstock

Kindness is always a good idea. As Aesop said, "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."

Inviting the concept into into your life with things like kindness quotes opens the door to increased positivity, better connections with others and improved wellness for yourself.

If you want to add more kindness to your life, you don't have to go for big deeds. You can say a kind word to a friend or pay for a stranger's coffee.

Small Acts, Big Difference

Showing kindness — whether it be giving a loved one a warm smile and kind words of encouragement or doing a random act of kindness for a stranger — can benefit a person's life.

While it takes courage to do kind deeds, especially for people you don't know, it can make a difference for them. (Have you ever had a stranger compliment you? It probably felt really nice.)

Kindness: Good for Your Health

But kindness does more than connect us to other human beings; it's also good for our health.

"The central idea is that kindness creates positive (supportive and meaningful) social connections, which, in turn, reduce the response to stressors as well as fulfill basic, innate needs that are critical to health and longevity," writes Dr. David A. Fryburg in "Kindness as a Stress Reduction–Health Promotion Intervention: A Review of the Psychobiology of Caring." "Under the umbrella term of 'kindness' are included related prosocial emotions and behaviors such as caring, generosity, altruism, empathy, gratitude, and compassion."

Not only is kindness a universal language, it's contagious. Seeing more imagery related to kindness can "trigger positive emotional changes, perceived connection to others and behavioral change," according to the publication.

13 Kindness Quotes

The following quotes capture the power of human kindness:

Maya Angelou: “My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.”
Confucius: "Act with kindness but do not expect gratitude."
Amelia Earhart: "A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees."
Ralph Waldo Emerson: "You cannot do kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."
Fred Rogers: "Being kind means responding to the needs of others — and people can be kind, no matter how old or young we are."
John Herrington: "I think kindness comes from the heart and if people can see that in you and recognize it in you, hopefully they pass it on to others."
Eric Hoffer: "Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind."
Henry James: “Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”
Michelle Obama: “Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses ... swapped back and forth and over again.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the figure of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.”
Sophocles: "One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession."
Desmond Tutu: "Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world."
Lao Tzu: "Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”