"A little word in kindness spoken,
A motion or a tear,
Has often healed the heart that's broken
And made a friend sincere."
There's nothing in business that pays so well as kindness. A man may
spend his money, and in proportion as he spends it he reduces his
principal. With kindness the matter is different, for in proportion as
you spend kindness your principal increases.
Lincoln said "You can catch more flies with a drop of honey than with a
gallon of vinegar."
Kindness is beautiful. It brings round you many persons who are ready
to say kind words to you. This subtle, potent influence of having lots
of friends to help you by their actions and showing their hearts is a
great blessing. It is surprising that people know so little of the
value of kindness.
The word "gentleman" is really a compound word, meaning gentle-man, and
these words together in their simplicity are the true definition of the
word gentleman.
Kindness means gentleness. No man is a gentleman who is not kind.
People are glad to recognize goodness and kindness in an individual. No
one can act the part if he is not sincere. We must cultivate kindness,
if there is little of it in our makeup. We must take an inventory of
our qualities, and if the weeds of mean impulses are crowding out the
delicate flowers of kindness, we should pull out those weeds and give
the flowers a chance to grow.
Lincoln was a kind man, kindness was his chief delight, and his
examples of kindness have been of untold benefit to millions of people.
You remember he said, "When they lay me away let it be said of me that
as I traveled along life's road I have always endeavored to pull up a
thistle and plant a rose in its stead."
Life at best is short, and the only things we really get out of life
are happiness, health and love. Money cannot buy these things.
The trouble with many business men is that they imagine good examples
and kindness have no place in business. They think the time to be kind
is after they have attained success financially. They think the time to
show kindness is outside of business hours.
The real way to be happy is to do the thing now, live each day for
itself. Get kindness in each day.
The man who is grave, austere, the man who tries to skin the other
fellow, who devotes all his energies to money-making alone, finds as
the years go by and he has attained his goal, but that he does not know
how to enjoy himself.
There are three periods in a man's life--the future, the now and the
past. When we attain old age our life is largely made up of
reminiscences, or looking back over the past. If our past life has been
one of struggle, worry and getting the best of the other fellow, then
there is little happiness in looking back over such a life.
The true philosopher does the thing now, he lives each day. He puts
kindness into his action, and when he grows old, he can look back
through a life that was pleasant as he lived it, and pleasanter now in
living it over again.
One of the Greek philosophers expresses the following beautiful
thought: "If there is any good deed I can do, or kindness I can show,
let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass
this way again."
The trouble is that some of us keep our kindnesses, or rather the
expression of it, until it is too late.
We should remember--"Do not keep the alabaster box of your love and
tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with
sweetness, speak approvingly cheerful words while their ears can hear
them; the kind things you mean to say when they are gone say before
they go. The flowers you mean to send for their coffins send to
brighten and sweeten their homes before they leave them. If my friends
have alabaster boxes laid away full of fragrant perfumes of sympathy
and affection which they intend to lay over my dead body, I would
rather they would bring them out in my weary and troubled hours, and
open them, that I may be refreshed and cheered by them while I need
them. I would rather have a plain coffin without a flower and a funeral
without an eulogy, than a life without the sweetness of love and
sympathy. Let us learn to anoint our friends beforehand for their
burial. Post-mortem kindness does not cheer the troubled spirit.
Flowers on the coffin cast no fragrance backward over life's weary
way."