Dear Saints,

Our morning sermon this Lord’s Day will be on being “kind” and showing “kindness” with studies of these words in the Hebrew and Greek, and our featured text being the command in Ephesians 4:32: “ … be ye kind …”.

At times, I like to search quotes and illustrations on a topic from a few resource books I have kept alongside me over the years.  In this case, I put together many (not all) of what was provided under the term, “kindness,” from The New Dictionary of Thoughts (A Cyclopedia of Quotations), by Tyron Edwards (Revised and Enlarged, 1957, Standard Book Company).  I will surely quote only a few in the sermon, but would like to share all that I typed up to muse on and choose from for your own benefit:

“Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles, and kindnesses, and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort.”—Sir H. Davy

“Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.”—Goethe

“Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.”—Shakespeare

“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.”—Penn

“The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.”—Wordsworth

“A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles.”—Washington Irving

“Kindness is a language the dumb can speak, and the deaf can hear and understand.”—Bovee

“The true and noble way to kill a foe, is not to kill him; you, with kindness, may so change him that he shall cease to be a foe, and then he’s slain.”—Aleyn

“Kind words produce their own image in men’s souls; and a beautiful image it is.  They soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer.  They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings.  We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used.”—Pascal

“Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in another.”—Landor

“Kindness is the only charm permitted to the aged; it is the coquetry of white hair.”—Feuillet

“To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.”—Johnson

“I had rather never receive a kindness, than never bestow one.”—Seneca

“Kind words prevent a good deal of that perverseness which rough and imperious usage often produces in generous minds.”—Locke

“The happiness of life may be greatly increased by small courtesies in which there is no parade, whose voice is too still to tease, and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate looks, and little kind acts of attention.”—Sterne

“A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain, while witty sayings are as easily lost as the pearls slipping from a broken string.”—G.D. Prentice

“I have sped much by land, and sea, and mingled with much people, but never yet could find a spot unsunned by human kindness.”—Supper

“The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice.”—Smiles

“Half the misery of human life might be extinguished if men would alleviate the general curse they lie under by mutual offices of compassion, benevolence, and humanity.”—Addison

“How easy is it for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around him, and how truly is a kind heart a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity to freshen into smiles.”—Washington Irving

“Kindness is wisdom; there is none in life but needs it, and may learn.”—G. Bailey

“Since trifles make the sum of human things, and half our misery from our foible springs; since life’s best joys consist in peace and ease, and few can save or serve, but all may please; let the ungentle spirit learn from thence, a small unkindness is a great offense.”—H. More

“Both man and womankind belie their nature when they are not kind.”—G. Bailey

“Make a rule, and pray to God to help you to keep it, never, if possible, to lie down at night without being able to say: ‘I have made one human being at least a little wiser, or a little happier, or at least a little better this day.’”—Charles Kingsley

“We cannot be just unless we are kindhearted.”—Vauvenargues

Beloved, let us endeavor to be kind people, as this is to reflect God (as our theme verse will indicate), Who is kind (Psalm 136:1, other times translated “good”), and whose kindness to us is everlasting and will never be taken away (Isaiah 54:8, 10).

Semper Reformanda,
Pastor Grant