You have to treat people gently because we're all in a process. What might seem like a good idea to somebody at 21 is probably not going to seem like a good idea at 50, but you don't know that until you get there.

My father was a man of great charity towards the poor, and compassion for the sick, and also for servants; so much so, that he never could be persuaded to keep slaves, for he pitied them so much: and a slave belonging to one of his brothers being once in his house, was treated by him with as much tenderness as his own children.

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

As a leader you should always start with where people are before you try to take them to where you want them to go.

Let us use love and compassion. Peace begins with a smile. Smile five times a day at someone you don't really want to smile at at all. Do it for peace.

Holiness grows so fast where there is kindness. The world is lost for want of sweetness and kindness. Do not forget we need each other.

To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.

Patience is how love diffuses something negative; kindness is how love initiates something positive.

When you choose to be patient, you respond in a positive way to a negative situation. You are slow to anger. You choose to have a long fuse instead of a quick temper. Rather than being restless and demanding, love helps you settle down and begin extending mercy to those around you. Patience brings an internal calm during an external storm.

If patience is how love reacts in order to minimize a negative circumstance, kidness is how love acts to maximize a positive circumstance. Patience avoids a problem; kidness creates a blessing.

Seek first to understand and then to be understood.

There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weights so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, with someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.