Giving and receiving kindness are easy ways to feel good and to help others feel good too. People, organizations, and societies thrive when they are grounded in a culture of kindness.
Interpretation
Kindness benefits both the giver and receiver, creating a positive community.
This quote emphasizes the importance of kindness in fostering a supportive and thriving environment. It suggests that both individuals and societies flourish when they embrace and practice kindness, leading to mutual benefit and well-being.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about building community initiatives.
I think sometimes in the focus on deep friendships and on romantic relationships, we can lose sight of how important the small connections we make are with strangers and with people that we may encounter for just a few seconds or a few minutes, whether it's the barista at our coffee shop or the stranger next to us on the subway.
Without strong communities, we cannot pull together during times of hardship. Our diversity turns from a source of strength to a source of conflict.
One of the things that happens in our regular lives is that when we're in moments of pain or feeling alone, we may hesitate to reach out to others because we may think - they're not going through the same experiences I am.
There's a tremendous sense of shame that people who are lonely feel. I say that as someone who felt ashamed of being lonely as a child and even at points during adulthood.
Our health care workers are the heroes of the Covid-19 response.
What you quickly realize once you commit to getting more sleep is it can increase your productivity, it can improve your mood. And that doesn't just help you at work, but it helps you be the kind of person you want to be with your family and your friends and that's ultimately what matters most.
The ultimate source of a happy life is warm-heartedness. This means extending to others the kind of concern we have for ourselves. On a simple level we find that if we have a compassionate heart we naturally have more friends. And scientists today are discovering that while anger and hatred eat into our immune system, warm-heartedness and compassion are good for our health.
Be grateful for what you do have, and you will find it increases. I like to bless with love all that is in my life right now-my home, the heat, water, light, telephone, furniture, plumbing, appliances, clothing, transportation, jobs-the money I do have, friends, my ability to see and feel and taste and touch and walk and to enjoy this incredible planet.
I'm proud to have been a Yankee. But I have found more happiness and contentment since I came back home to San Francisco than any man has a right to deserve. This is the friendliest city in the world.
Happiness is experienced largely in striving towards a goal, not in having attained things, because our nature is always to want to go on to the next endeavor.
I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.
I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.