98 Fun Facts About Kindness

The movement behind World Kindness Day grew out of a 1963 graduation speech in which country?

Japan's Small Kindness Movement began when a university president urged his graduates to be brave in practising small kindnesses, and in 1997 kindness groups from around the world first gathered in Tokyo.

In the United States, Random Acts of Kindness Day falls three days after which holiday?

Valentine's Day is 14 February and the kindness day the 17th: the foundation that promotes it, now in Denver, was started in 1995 by the head of a small California press whose book of kindness stories had become a bestseller.

Writer Anne Herbert's slogan, first scribbled on a restaurant place mat, urged 'random kindness and senseless acts of' what?

Beauty completed the line, a flip of grim news phrases about random violence and senseless cruelty; it spread by graffiti and bumper sticker until a small Berkeley press turned it into a bestselling book of true stories.

'Pay it forward' means repaying a good deed how?

By doing a kindness for someone else, you keep the chain moving: the phrase was probably coined by a novelist whose narrator says of a great-aunt's devotion, 'You don't pay love back; you pay it forward.'

Long before 'pay it forward' was coined, which founding father made a loan to be passed on, not repaid?

Benjamin Franklin helped a man in debt in 1784 and told him to repay it by lending the same sum to another honest man in distress, hoping it would pass through many hands: 'a trick of mine', he called it.

Which child actor starred in the 2000 film Pay It Forward, based on Catherine Ryan Hyde's novel?

Haley Joel Osment plays a seventh-grader whose class project is to do three big favours and ask each person to pay it forward to three more, so the good deeds multiply instead of coming back to him.

The principle of treating others as you would want to be treated is known as what?

The Golden Rule has a quieter twin: the 'do not' version, which asks only that you spare other people whatever you would hate yourself, is sometimes called the Silver Rule.

Which Chinese philosopher taught, 'Do not do to others what you would not want done to you'?

Confucius was answering a student who asked whether one word could guide a whole life: he offered 'reciprocity', and this saying was how he spelled it out.

Challenged to teach the Torah on one foot, which sage said, 'What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow'?

Hillel the Elder took a dare that his rival Shammai had just answered by driving the man off with a builder's measuring stick, and he added: 'the rest is the explanation; go and learn.'

In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus says 'do to others what you would have them do to you' during which famous teaching?

The Sermon on the Mount offers the line as a summary of all scripture, adding 'for this sums up the Law and the Prophets', while Luke's Gospel places the same saying in a shorter sermon given on level ground.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the traveller is robbed on the road from Jerusalem to which city?

Jericho lay at the foot of a steep, winding road notorious for robbers: Martin Luther King Jr. drove it on a visit and told his wife he could see at once why the parable was set there.

'Good Samaritan laws' protect people who do what?

All 50 US states have such a law: those who give reasonable help to someone in peril generally can't be sued over an honest mistake, so bystanders don't hesitate, though gross negligence is not covered.

The 'kind' in 'kindness' goes back to an Old English word with which meaning?

Nature or family is the sense of Old English 'gecynd', a cousin of the word 'kin': to be kind at first meant showing the natural feeling that relatives have for one another.

In his Rhetoric, Aristotle defined kindness (charis) as what?

Helpfulness towards someone in need, given 'not in return for anything', was his whole definition, and he added that a kindness counts for most when the need is urgent or the helper is the only one to step in.

Which philosopher argued an act has moral worth only when done from duty, not fleeting feeling?

Immanuel Kant's example was a shopkeeper who never overcharges a child only because cheating would be bad for business: honest, he said, yet of no moral worth, because duty was not the motive.

Which French philosopher popularised, and possibly coined, the word 'altruism' in the 19th century?

Auguste Comte summed up his ethics as 'live for others', and he went on to found a secular Religion of Humanity with its own priests and sacraments.

Economist James Andreoni's term for the selfish pleasure people feel from 'doing good' is what?

Warm-glow giving makes donors 'impure altruists', moved partly by how good giving feels, and it explains why a government grant to a cause never fully replaces the private donations it might be expected to displace.

Which hormone is nicknamed the 'cuddle hormone' or 'love hormone' for its role in bonding?

Oxytocin is released during hugging, childbirth and breastfeeding, and its day job is practical: a synthetic version is the drug hospitals give to start or speed up labour.

One American study found that over-50s who volunteer regularly are less likely to develop what?

High blood pressure was 40 per cent less likely four years later, but only among those putting in at least 200 hours a year: lighter volunteering showed no such benefit.

Yale's 'Baby Lab' tested whether infants prefer kind characters to mean ones by having them watch what?

Puppet shows were the test: babies too young to talk watched one puppet help a struggling character and another thwart it, and when offered both, most reached for the helper.

Which Robert Trivers concept explains why animals help others who will help them back later?

Vampire bats regurgitating blood for hungry roost-mates are the textbook example.

Which R. J. Palacio novel about a boy with facial differences launched the 'Choose Kind' movement?

Wonder began with a moment its author regretted: her small son cried at the sight of a girl with a severe facial difference, she rushed him away, and her anger at herself set her writing that same night.

Which actress played the mother of Auggie Pullman in the 2017 film of R. J. Palacio's bestselling novel?

Julia Roberts played Isabel Pullman, with Owen Wilson as the boy's father, and the quiet family drama went on to take more than $300 million at cinemas worldwide.

Megan Murphy started the Kindness Rocks Project in 2015 by leaving rocks bearing messages on a beach in which part of Massachusetts?

Cape Cod gave a quick verdict: a friend found a rock reading 'You've got this', told Murphy it had brightened her day, and that persuaded her to keep going.

GivingTuesday, launched in 2012 at New York's 92nd Street Y, falls on the Tuesday after which holiday?

Thanksgiving leads straight into the shopping sprees of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and GivingTuesday was placed right after them on purpose, to turn attention from buying to giving.

Which part of her 1979 Nobel Peace Prize celebrations did Mother Teresa have cancelled so its cost could go to the poor?

The banquet was dropped at her request, and in her acceptance speech she said she was grateful to receive the prize 'in the name of the hungry, of the naked, of the homeless'.

Which organisation has won the Nobel Peace Prize three times, more than any other recipient?

Its wins came in 1917, 1944 and 1963; the UN refugee agency has won twice.

In 1969, Fred Rogers famously testified before a US Senate subcommittee to save funding for what?

Public broadcasting (PBS) kept its $20 million after his six-minute plea: the gruff subcommittee chairman confessed to goose bumps and told him, 'Looks like you just earned the $20 million.'

Which steel magnate wrote the 1889 essay 'The Gospel of Wealth' and funded thousands of public libraries?

Andrew Carnegie closed the essay with the verdict that 'the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced', then lived by it, paying for 2,509 libraries around the world.

The Bantu philosophy often translated as 'I am because we are' is called what?

Ubuntu rests on a proverb Desmond Tutu loved to quote, 'a person is a person through other persons', and he made it the guiding spirit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission he chaired.

Which Hebrew word, frequent in the Psalms, is traditionally translated as 'loving kindness'?

Chesed is the word, and an ancient rabbinic saying makes it one of three things the world stands on: the Torah, worship and 'gemilut chasadim', acts of loving kindness.

Ahimsa, the ancient Indian principle of non-violence toward all living beings, is a key virtue of Hinduism, Buddhism and which other religion?

Jainism takes the rule furthest: its monks sweep the ground ahead of them as they walk, and some wear cloths over their mouths, so as not to crush or swallow even an insect.

In the Quran, kind words and forgiveness are said to be better than what?

Charity followed by injury is pictured in the next verse as a smooth rock under a thin layer of soil: one downpour leaves it bare, just as reminders and hurtful words wash away the good of a gift.

Which prime minister made kindness a theme of her leadership through the Christchurch attacks and COVID-19?

Jacinda Ardern vowed never to speak the Christchurch gunman's name, and within a month her ban on military-style semi-automatic weapons passed Parliament with only a single MP voting against.

In Netflix's The Kindness Diaries, Leon Logothetis travels the world unable to accept what?

Money was off limits, so he asked strangers for food, fuel and a bed as he rode a vintage motorbike and sidecar named Kindness One, then repaid many of his hosts with life-changing gifts.

Peter Singer's famous argument for giving to charity asks whether you would ruin your clothes to save what?

A drowning child in a shallow pond is his test: nearly everyone says they would wade in and ruin their shoes, so he asks why we won't give up the same sum to save a child who is far away.

One psychologist's model splits kindness into three components: emotions, cognitions and what?

Behaviours complete the feel, think and do trio in Tina Malti's model, which adds a twist: each part can face outwards, as concern for someone in need, or inwards, as being gentle with yourself.

Asked whether hatred should be repaid with kindness, the sage of the Analects said to repay it with what instead?

Justice was his answer, and he turned the question round: if hatred is repaid with kindness, 'with what then will you recompense kindness?' His rule was justice for hatred, kindness for kindness.

In which Tennessee Williams play does Blanche DuBois say she has 'always depended on the kindness of strangers'?

A Streetcar Named Desire gives the line a bitter edge: Blanche says it to the doctor who has come to take her to a mental institution, and it sits on the American Film Institute's list of 100 great movie quotes.

In which city is the Nobel Peace Prize awarded, unlike the other Nobel Prizes?

Oslo hosts it because Alfred Nobel's will gave the peace prize to a committee chosen by Norway's parliament; he never explained the choice, though Norway and Sweden were joined in a union at the time.

Which country holds its own national Random Acts of Kindness Day on 1 September, its first day of spring?

New Zealand owes the day to an Auckland traffic jam: its co-founder sat watching drivers ahead of him flare into road rage and asked himself what would happen if everyone was kind to a stranger for one day.

Which Aesop fable carries the moral that no act of kindness is ever wasted?

The Lion and the Mouse earns the moral: a lion spares the mouse that woke him and laughs at her promise to repay him, until hunters net him and she gnaws through the ropes to set him free.

What did volunteers hand out 45,000 of when Singapore first marked World Kindness Day in 2009?

Yellow flowers, gerbera daisies meant to be passed on to someone who had been kind, got a wary welcome: many passers-by waved the volunteers away, sure there was a catch, until word spread that they were free.

Nietzsche identified kindness and sympathy as central virtues of what?

Slave morality, in his account, prizes whatever eases the lot of the weak, so sympathy, pity and humility count as good, while its opposite admires strength, power and nobility.

Which central concept of Confucian philosophy is interpreted by scholars as shared humanity or kindness for others?

Ren is written with the signs for 'person' and 'two', often read as a picture of the virtue itself: it lives between people, and one scholar translates it as 'co-humanity'. The Analects sums it up as loving people.

Rudine Sims Bishop's influential 1990 essay says children's books should be windows, sliding glass doors and what else?

Mirrors let children see their own lives reflected in a story, she wrote, while windows show them other worlds and sliding glass doors invite them to step through in imagination.

Which Shakespeare character fears her husband is too full of 'the milk of human kindness' to seize a crown?

Lady Macbeth means it as a fault: reading her husband's letter about the witches' prophecy, she worries he is too soft to murder his way to the throne, and her line gave English the phrase.

Which singer wore 'Treat People With Kindness' as a badge on his guitar strap before turning the slogan into a 2019 song?

Harry Styles put the slogan on his tour T-shirts, and in 2018 he gave the profits from Pride editions to a group that supports LGBTQ students, a year before the song came out.

Which British royal held hands with an AIDS patient in 1987, in an early effort to break the stigma of the illness?

Princess Diana later visited a leprosy hospital in Nepal, where her touch was the first the patients had ever had from a visiting dignitary.

The caffè sospeso, a coffee paid for in advance for a stranger, began in the cafés of which Italian city?

Naples customers who had enjoyed a stroke of good luck would pay for two coffees but drink only one, leaving the second for whoever asked.

Saint Nicholas, the bishop behind Santa Claus, is said to have dropped what through the window of three poor sisters?

Bags of gold coins let the girls' father pay a dowry for each of them in the legend, which is why artists paint Nicholas holding three purses or gold balls.

Which marine mammal is known to mob attacking orcas in defence of other animals, including seals?

Humpback whale rescues may be a happy accident: scientists suggest they are a spillover of the mobbing that protects the whales' own calves.

Which country singer founded the Imagination Library, which mails a free book each month to children under five?

Dolly Parton started the scheme in 1995 as a tribute to her father, who was unable to read.

During the unofficial Christmas truce of 1914, British and German soldiers met in no man's land to play which sport?

Soccer, or football to the men who played it, appears in many accounts of the truce, alongside carol singing and joint burial ceremonies.

Harvey Ball, whose foundation runs an October day of kind acts, earned just $45 for drawing which symbol in 1963?

The smiley face was drawn for an insurance company's lapel pins and never trademarked; his foundation's World Smile Day falls on the first Friday of October.

Florence Nightingale became 'The Lady with the Lamp' on night rounds among wounded soldiers in which conflict?

The Crimean War nickname came from a report in The Times, and a fund raised in her name went on to pay for the training of nurses.

Which Hollywood actor co-founded a food company in 1982 that hands all of its after-tax profits to good causes?

Paul Newman began by bottling a homemade salad dressing with the writer A. E. Hotchner, each man putting in $20,000 to get the firm started.

Which term, born of the 1964 Kitty Genovese murder, describes people helping less when other people are present?

The bystander effect was first tested by John Darley and Bibb Latané in 1968, though the newspaper claim that 37 neighbours ignored the attack was itself wrong.

Which actor played children's television host Fred Rogers in the 2019 film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood?

Tom Hanks plays Rogers opposite a troubled Esquire journalist sent to profile him, a story drawn from a real magazine article by Tom Junod.

In E. B. White's Charlotte's Web, the spider Charlotte weaves words into her web to save the life of which animal?

A pig called Wilbur is spared after Charlotte spells out words of praise above his pen, persuading the farmer that he is too special to slaughter.

Which Charles Dickens miser ends up anonymously sending a large turkey to the Cratchit home for Christmas?

Ebenezer Scrooge also makes a large donation to the collectors he had turned away only the day before.

Which former US president was a longtime volunteer house-builder with the housing group Habitat for Humanity?

Jimmy Carter lent his name to a yearly work project, and one of its builds in Florida put up 85 homes in just 17 days.

The 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge raised more than $100 million for research into which illness?

Lou Gehrig's disease, known to doctors as ALS, received $115 million from the 2014 craze, but the repeat challenge a year later raised only about $500,000.

Which organisation, founded in London's East End by William Booth, collects Christmas donations in red kettles?

The Salvation Army posts more than 25,000 volunteer bell ringers beside its kettles in the United States alone in the weeks before Christmas.

American children have long collected Halloween donations in small orange boxes for which United Nations agency?

UNICEF's Halloween collection started as a local event in Philadelphia in 1950, when the first children gathered coins in decorated milk cartons.

Which dog breed was first bred for rescue work by a monks' hospice on an Alpine pass between Italy and Switzerland?

St. Bernard dogs reached the hospice in the 1660s, and the most celebrated of them, Barry, reportedly saved at least 40 lives.

Which US president closed his second inaugural address by urging 'malice toward none' and 'charity for all'?

Abraham Lincoln spoke the words as the Civil War neared its end, and he was assassinated just over a month later.

In a 1954 Dr. Seuss book, which elephant vows to protect the tiny people living on a speck of dust?

Horton places the speck on a clover for safety and stands by it while the other jungle animals, led by a kangaroo, mock him.

Which of the Five Pillars of Islam obliges Muslims with enough wealth to pay a share of it to the needy?

Zakat is customarily set at 2.5 per cent, one fortieth, and Muslims whose wealth falls below a minimum known as nisab owe nothing.

Which religion's temples run the langar, a community kitchen serving free food to all, whatever their faith or caste?

Sikhism has kept the langar since its founder, Guru Nanak, introduced it around 1500 as a symbol of equality.

The wedding favourite beginning 'Love is patient, love is kind' comes from which New Testament letter?

First Corinthians 13 was written to help a divided congregation live together, not to celebrate romance, yet it ranks love above even faith and hope.

Which Hebrew word, literally 'commandment', has also come to mean an individual act of human kindness?

Mitzvah first means a commandment from God, then the deed that fulfils one, which is how the word came to cover any good turn.

Which soldier-saint, later a bishop in France, used his sword to cut his cloak in two and give half to a beggar?

Saint Martin of Tours met the beggar in winter, clad only in rags, and the divided cloak became his emblem in art.

Which 'good king' of a Victorian Christmas carol braves harsh winter weather to carry alms to a poor peasant?

Wenceslas was only a duke of Bohemia in his lifetime, and the royal title was conferred after his death by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I.

Which Pali word names the loving-kindness that Buddhists cultivate in a popular form of meditation?

Metta is one of Buddhism's four immeasurables, and its Sanskrit form, maitri, also carries the senses of friendliness and good will.

Which Greek word names selfless, unconditional love, as distinct from eros and the brotherly love called philia?

Agape has been called the highest form of love, covering the love of God for human beings and of human beings for God.

Which word for generous support of good causes comes from the ancient Greek for 'love of humanity'?

Philanthropy joins the Greek philo-, 'to love or be fond of', with anthropos, 'humankind'.

The word 'compassion' comes from Latin roots that literally mean doing what 'with' another person?

Suffering with another is the literal sense, built from the Latin com, 'together', and pati, 'to suffer', the verb behind 'passion' as well.

Which flying mammals, able to last only about two days without feeding, regurgitate food for hungry roost mates?

Vampire bats often form a buddy system, and donors have been seen approaching starving roost mates to start the sharing themselves.

In a famous 1973 study of theology students, what best predicted whether one would stop to help a stranger?

How hurried they felt mattered more than religious views or personality, in an experiment that sent some of the students to give a talk on the Good Samaritan.

Which English word was coined in the early 1900s to translate the German term Einfühlung, or 'feeling into'?

Empathy began as a term from German aesthetics, which the philosopher Theodor Lipps carried over into psychology in 1903.

Australian James Harrison, whose rare antibodies protect unborn babies, gave 1,173 donations, mostly of which substance?

Plasma from Harrison carried unusually strong antibodies against Rh disease, and he kept donating from the age of 18 until he was 81.

In Boston in 1954, Ronald Herrick gave which organ to his identical twin brother in a landmark transplant operation?

A kidney from an identical twin reduced the problem of an immune reaction, and the surgeon Joseph Murray went on to win a Nobel Prize in 1990.

Which Scottish thinker built his 1759 book The Theory of Moral Sentiments on people's sympathy for one another?

Adam Smith published it 17 years before The Wealth of Nations, the study of trade and self-interest that made his name.

Which scientist chose not to patent his 1955 polio vaccine so that it could be distributed as widely as possible?

Jonas Salk was hailed as a miracle worker, though lawyers who looked into a patent decided his methods were probably not novel enough to protect anyway.

The patent for which life-saving drug was signed over to the University of Toronto in 1923 for a token one dollar?

Insulin's co-discoverers had already agreed among themselves not to take out a patent with a commercial drug firm.

Which car maker introduced the three-point seat belt in 1959, then let rival manufacturers use the patent for free?

Volvo had the belt from its engineer Nils Bohlin and opened the patent to other car makers in the interest of safety.

Which nurse turned physician opened St Christopher's, the world's first purpose-built hospice, in London in 1967?

Cicely Saunders traced the idea to a dying patient who left her £500, a gift remembered by a plain sheet of glass at the hospice entrance.

Whose rescue of 669 children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War went unnoticed for nearly 50 years?

Nicholas Winton's secret came out in 1988, when his wife found a scrapbook of names in the attic and a BBC programme reunited him with dozens of those he had saved.

Which Canadian ran 5,373 kilometres on an artificial leg in 1980 to raise funds for cancer research?

Terry Fox was forced to stop after 143 days, but the annual runs held in his name have gone on to raise more than a billion Canadian dollars.

Whose birthday, 18 July, is marked around the globe by a call to spend 67 minutes of your time on others?

Nelson Mandela spent 67 years fighting for a fairer society, which is where the number of minutes comes from, and the United Nations made the day official in 2009.

Which musical tells how the Newfoundland town of Gander took in about 7,000 stranded air passengers after 9/11?

Come From Away bases its characters on real Gander residents and the travellers they housed and fed when 38 planes were ordered to land there.

The Filipino term bayanihan comes from a custom of neighbours helping a household move by carrying what?

The house itself was lifted and carried to its new site, a scene that remains the classic picture of communal spirit in the Philippines.

Which duty-free shopping billionaire secretly gave away more than $8 billion and ended up living in a rented apartment?

Chuck Feeney gave so stealthily that Forbes compared him to James Bond, and in 2020 he signed the papers closing his emptied foundation.

Which medieval Jewish philosopher ranked eight levels of giving, with help towards self-sufficiency at the very top?

Maimonides put a gift, loan or partnership that frees a person from depending on others at the top of his ladder, and giving begrudgingly at the bottom.

Which Swahili word meaning 'all pull together' is Kenya's official motto and appears on its coat of arms?

Harambee was taken up by Jomo Kenyatta after independence in 1963 as a call to build the new nation together, and it names community self-help events too.

At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, who helped injured British sprinter Derek Redmond finish his 400 metres semi-final?

His dad helped him limp round a full lap of the track after he tore his hamstring, and the crowd rose in a standing ovation.

Which colour of shirt do Canadians wear on an anti-bullying day begun by two Nova Scotia students in 2007?

Pink was chosen after a ninth-grader was bullied for wearing a polo shirt in that colour, and two older students bought 50 like it to hand out in support.