"Loving kindness is a form of love that truly is an ability, and, as research scientists have show, it can be learned. It is the ability to take some risks with our awareness-to look at ourselves and others with kindness instead of reflexive criticism; to include in our concern those to whom we normally pay no attention; to care for ourselves unconditionally instead of thinking, "I will love myself as long as I never make a mistake." It is the ability to gather our attention and really listen to others, even those we've written off as not worth our time. It is the ability to see the humanity in people we don't know and the pain in people we find difficult."

Cultivating loving kindness for ourselves is the foundation of real love for our friends and family, for new people we encounter in our daily lives, for all beings and for life itself.

When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.

The wonder of spontaneous, tough-hearted, uncalculated, discipline, and unexpected love, that's living. True kindness never stops for one moment to calculate the cost of time, of money, of inconvenience, or even danger, but jumps to the aid of a neighbor, even an enemy. Love for neighbor is ever ready. And once we get it going, it keeps going and going and going.

The second element of true love is compassion. Compassion is the capacity to understand the suffering in oneself and in the other person. If you understand your own suffering, you can help him to understand his suffering. Understanding suffering brings compassion and relief. You can transform your own suffering and help transform the suffering of the other person with the practice of mindfulness and looking deeply.

The foundation of a happy relationship (and life, really) is unconditional kindness. It’s synonymous with love, and maybe even more effective, because it shows you the action as opposed to the feeling or expectation.

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.

If you have kindness in your heart, you offer acts of kindness to touch the hearts of others wherever you go — whether they are random or planned. Kindness becomes a way of life.

Kindness is an inner desire that makes us want to do good things even if we do not get anything in return. It is the joy of our life to do them. When we do good things from this inner desire, there is kindness in everything we think, say, want, and do.

True love is made of four elements: loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.

Love someone who is kinder to you than you are to yourself.

True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one's own the suffering and joys of others.

Kindness is really at the core of what it means to be and feel alive.