Human Kindness Quotes

“I don't believe in your "Good". I believe in human kindness.”
― Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate

“Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness.”
― Vasily Grossman

“If there is no love for others, love of country is just a slogan.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“Everyone seemed to be in a blind hurry, and there was no relief in sight. Technology rushed us ever forward, and simple civility - a certain kindness and care - got sacrificed.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Year of Pleasures

“I think it may be not unjustly said that Mrs. Barton Trafford fairly ran over with the milk of human kindness, but all the same I have an inkling that if ever the milk of human kindness was charged with vitriol, here was a case in point.”
― W. Somerset Maugham

“What if each man learns to know all his fellow men; learns how the other fellow lies and walks and talks; learns what sort of trees and rocks and homes make up his existence?”
― Robert Edison Fulton Jr., One Man Caravan

“That night I hardly slept a wink, but turned over and over in my tent; never until then had I felt so alone or so deserted. Perhaps even the elephants are too small, I thought, as I stared into the darkness, and we need a far bigger and more affectionate presence at our side.”
― Romain Gary, The Roots of Heaven

“What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded sensibly, reservedly, mildly.”
― George Saunders

“Suddenly Morel had felt something strike against his cheek and fall at his feet. He lowered his eyes cautiously, taking care not to lose his balance. It was a may-beetle. It had fallen on its back and was waving its legs, trying in vain to turn over. Morel stopped and stared fixedly at the insect at his feet. He had been at the camp a year, and for the last three weeks he had been carrying the sacks of cement
for eight hours a day on an empty stomach. But this was something impossible to let pass.
He bent his knee, keeping the sacks balanced on his shoulder, and with a movement of his forefinger placed the insect on its feet again. He did so twice more in the course of that journey. [...]
From that moment practically all the political prisoners assisted the insects, while the common criminals passed by with curses. During the twenty minutes’ break they were allowed, not one of the political prisoners gave way to exhaustion, and
yet that was when they usually threw themselves to the ground and lay without stirring till the next whistle. But this time they seemed to have found new strength. They wandered about with their eyes fixed on the ground in search of insects to help.
It did not last long, of course. Sergeant Gruber arrived on the scene. [...] Immediately he had understood what was happening. He had recognized the enemy. He had known immediately that he was face to face with a scandalous provocation, an affirmation of unbroken spirit and faith, a proclamation of dignity, totally inadmissible in men reduced to zero.”
― Romain Gary, The Roots of Heaven

“After all, we emerged from the mud some millions of years ago, and although we got rid of our scales, there is still a long way to go before we become really human — but one of these days we shall triumph over our limitations, over the harsh biological law which has been imposed upon us. Our friend was right: it’s an inhuman law, and it’s high time to change it.Then all that will be left of the infirmity and the challenge of being a man will be one more cast skin by the side of our
track.”
― Romain Gary, The Roots of Heaven

“HumanKIND Welcome Here!”
― Liza M. Wiemer, The Assignment

“The loss of empathy is also the loss of humanity, and that's no small tradeoff.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, High Tide in Tucson : Essays from Now or Never