Helpfulness

They might not need me, but they might.
I'll let my head be just in sight;
A smile as small as mine might be
Precisely their necessity.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in Vain.

- Emily Dickonson

The Cost is Small

Kindness has been described in many ways. It is the poetry of the heart, 
the music of the world. It is a golden chain which binds society 
together. It is a fountain of gladness. Kind hearts are more than 
coronets. Kind words produce their own beautiful image in man's soul. 
Everyone knows the pleasure of receiving a kind look, a warm greeting, 
a hand held out in time of need. And such gestures can be made at so 
little expense, yet they bring such dividends to the investor.

- The War Cry

After Benjamin Franklin had received a letter thanking him for having
done a kindness, he replied:
"As to the kindness you mention, I wish I could have been more service 
to you than I have been, but if I had, the only thanks that I should 
desire are that you would always be ready to serve any other person 
that may need your assistance, and so let good offices go around, for 
mankind are all of a family. As for my own part, when I am employed 
in serving others I do not look upon myself as conferring favors but 
paying debts."

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer 
life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that 
I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have 
received and am still receiving.

- Albert Einstein

You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the moments 
that stand out are the moments when you have done things for others.

- Henry Drummond

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will 
have sought and found how to serve.

- Albert Schweitzer

Our Common Nature

No one is so rich that he does not need another's help; 
no one so poor as not to be useful in some way to his fellow man;
and the disposition to ask assistance from others with confidence,
and to grant it with kindness, is part of our very nature.

- Pope Leo XIII

The best cure for worry, depression, melancholy, brooding, is to go 
deliberately forth and try to lift with one's sympathy the gloom of 
somebody else. 

- Arnold Bennett 

I have wept in the night
For the shortness of sight
That to somebody's need made me blind;
But I never have yet
Felt a tinge of regret
For being a little to kind

- Unknown