The #347 bus winds through the northern burbs of Seattle. It is a local bus and makes so many stops, one almost thinks that the driver would start delivering the mail. It goes to the strip mall culuster of Mountlake Terrace and then returns to America’s first mall, Northgate. Moi was taking the #347 back to Northgate. She was struck by the extrordinary kindness of the driver. People who ride buses are often elderly, poor, carless, environmentalists, frugal, and/or observers of the human condition. Obviously, the driver had a familiarity with his charges. He greeted each warmly. There were two passengers with walkers. Both who stubbornly insisted on slowly getting on the bus with their own power. No lift, thank you. The driver waited and commented that one lady brought her shoping bag and he hoped she found some bargins. He welcomed the man with the walker and his wife hoping that had a good afternoom. There were the people with the the multiples of little children and the young people who are sullen as so many young people are. Each was given their measure of greeting and cheer. Life is not about being exalted, often those who are happiest are those who can find things to exalt in others. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is kindness given to strangers.
For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.
Audrey Hepburn
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
Khalil Gibran
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.
Og Mandino
Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
Lao Tzu
A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.
William Arthur Ward
It has always seemed strange to me… the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.
John Steinbeck
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.
Confucius
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Mark Twain
drwilda 