“The Little, Nameless, Unremebered Acts of Kindness and Love”

A friend recently posted this Wordsworth quote on Facebook, and talked about how she had noticed a lot of small, generous actions lately, and how they made the world a little brighter.

I wasn’t familiar with the quote, so I looked it up. 

“The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.”  William Wordsworth.

The comments on the Facebook post talked about how true goodness lies in the small, selfless acts of kindness that happen every day. 

I love the quote, and some of the comments were thought provoking.  It’s so easy to get hung up on the big picture, and to feel like the small things are insignificant to the point of being meaningless. 

But the small acts do matter.  Whether it’s sharing an umbrella, giving someone a genuine compliment, or holding the elevator for someone.  We all have those days where it seems like nothing we do is right, and everything goes wrong.  Doesn’t it help when someone is unexpectedly kind?  Even if it’s a tiny little thing.  You never know who else is having one of those days, and how much a small thing that seems insignificant to you may mean to them. 

I don’t really have a picture to go with this, and you know that typically means I share a cat picture, so here’s one of Mortimer looking especially cute. 

Have you seen or benefited from any little acts lately?

An Interesting Quote

I came across this quote on goodreads today:

“People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us... It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.” 
― Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

I haven’t read the book, but now I think I really, really want to.  I thought the quote was very thought provoking and very true. 

Some of the best people I know seem to have the worst opinions of themselves.  It seems that often the truly amazing, special people in the world don’t realize they are.  How many heroes think they are?  How many times on the news do you hear a person who stepped up to help another person brushing off praise, or simply saying it needed to be done?  

History is full of people who thought they were somehow better than, or superior to, everyone else.  Isn’t that what so many problems stem from?  Racism, ethnic cleansing, hate crimes, religious persecution all seem to happen because someone has the idea that they are superior to people who don’t believe the same as them, or aren’t the same color, or speak a different language, or somehow don’t conform to their ideal. 

I guess it’s much the same as “too good to be true” and the people who present themselves as better than, or superior to, others just aren’t.  So what about you, what are your thoughts on the quote, or on someone or something being too good to be true?