Leo Tolstoy
Translated by
Dmitry Fadeyev
Kindness conquers everything and is itself invincible.
One can resist everything but kindness.
— Rousseau
It is not the condemnation of evil but the exaltation of good that establishes harmony and unity in the lives of individuals and of the world. A person condemns evil and the one who commits it, but this very condemnation of evil and those who commit it will only result in an increase of evil, whereas by disdaining evil and focusing only on the good, evil is destroyed.
— Lucy Mallory
If a good deed has an ulterior motive, it is no longer good, and nor is it good if it is motivated by a reward. The good is outside of the chain of causes and effects.
Just as torches and fireworks grow dim and become invisible when illuminated by the sun, so too does the mind, even genius, as well as beauty, fade away and are overshadowed before heartfelt kindness.
— Schopenhauer
A boundless gentleness is the greatest gift and possession of all truly great people.
— John Ruskin
The tenderest of plants carve out their path through the hardest earth, through cracks in rock. So does kindness. Is there a spear, a hammer, a battering ram that can match the power of a kind, sincere human being? Nothing can withstand him.
— Thoreau
Where there is a human being, there is also an opportunity to do something good for him.
— Seneca
We think that we love those whom we admire, who praise us, who do good things for us, but that is not love, it is infatuation or an exchange of benefits: he praises us, and we praise him back, he does something good for us, and we repay him with the same. There is nothing bad in such a feeling, but it is not true love, not God’s love. True God’s love means to love a person not because we find him pleasant or because he did something good for us, but because we can see the spirit of God within him, just as in every other human being.
Only when we love people this way can we love the way that Christ taught us, not only those who love us, but also those who are bad to us and to the whole world, those who are our enemies. And such love is not diminished by other people’s hating us, but, on the contrary, it becomes stronger and more lasting. It grows in strength because the more a human being is filled with hate, the more he is in need of love. And such a love is more lasting than passionate and mutual love because no changes in those whom we love can alter it.
To say a kind word in reply to a hateful one, to offer help in response to an insult, to turn the other cheek when one has been struck—these are reliable means of pacifying anger, available to everyone at all times.