Charity is like warmth in springtime or summer that causes grass, plants, and trees to grow. Without charity, or spiritual warmth, nothing grows.
Emanuel SwedenborgRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Kindness is a natural urge that compels us to perform good deeds without expecting anything in return.
This quote emphasizes the intrinsic value of kindness, portraying it as a deep-seated desire within us. Swedenborg suggests that true kindness is motivated by an internal joy rather than external rewards, influencing our thoughts and actions to resonate with goodness and compassion.
Themes
KindnessGoodnessCompassionJoyInner Desire
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about community service, one might say, 'As Emanuel Swedenborg said, kindness is an inner desire that compels us to act for the good of others.'
More from Emanuel Swedenborg
All quotes →It can in no sense be said that heaven is outside of any one; it is within ... and a man, also, so far as he receives heaven, is a recipient, a heaven, and an angel.
Emanuel SwedenborgRead
I have seen a thousand times that Angels are human form, or men, for I have conversed with them as man to man, sometimes with one alone, sometimes with many in company.
Emanuel SwedenborgRead
True charity is the desire to be useful to others with no thought of recompense.
Emanuel SwedenborgRead
Hell and Heaven are near man, yes, in him; and every man after death goes to that Hell or heaven in which he was, or to his spirit, during his abode in the world.
Emanuel SwedenborgRead
For in every particular of the Word there is an internal sense which treats of things spiritual and heavenly, not of things natural and worldly, such as are treated of in the sense of the letter.
Emanuel SwedenborgRead
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