Dorothy Day, the Catholic activist and peacemaker once said: "The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution that has to start with each one of us." Meladee and Hanoch McCarty would agree. They are convinced that this change can best be achieved through the simple but universal practice of kindness. They think "it's time for civility, service, empathy, caring, tenderness, concern for others and self-responsibility to be returned to our country and to the world."
The book begins with "Twelve Steps to a Kinder Life" which include start small, get in the habit of kindness, don't seek gratitude, don't compare yourself to anyone else, allow yourself to be a receiver of kindness, and refraining can be a great act of kindness. The McCarty's suggest you use the book as a daily journal, and so there are spaces to fill in your own observations and experiences of kindness. Here are some of the many quotations in the paperback:
• "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched . . . but are felt in the heart."
— Helen Keller
• "Where there is no truth, there is no kindness.
— Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav
• "When the heart is full, the eyes overflow.
— Sholem Aleichem
• "Ninety percent of all mental illness that comes before me could have been prevented, or cured, by ordinary kindness."
— Dr. William McGrath
• "Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows."
— Robert Ingersoll
