These books are a mixture of philosophy, evolutionary biology, sociology, psychology, and a little poetry. All of them will lean you towards kindness and happiness, some by giving scientific explanations of kindness that help you to believe in it more easily as natural and human, some by giving practicable processes you can follow to gradually re-wire your brain for happiness.

To me, the most important book I’ve ever read in it’s direct influence on my way of thinking and of seeing the world. Makes me joyously happy to read, very simple in style, some difficult ideas when they’re new but you’ll enjoy re-reading them.

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Is there such a thing as a truly altruistic act?

Is it kinder to tell a white lie and spare a friend’s feelings or to be honest and hurt them?
Who is kinder, a nurse who wouldn’t give you 20p for your bus fare home, or a weapons designer who would help you move house?

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Joygernaut: The Play

What is this all for?

  • The Survey

    I’m trying to get an honest picture of what people think and feel about kindness.

  • The Stories

    I am gathering real-life stories of both kindness and cruelty. I’m doing this through in-person interviews, workshops, social media, and online submissions.

  • The Experts

    I’m finding out what the experts in kindness say. The biologists, sociologists, psychologists. Science types.

  • The Play

    An interactive, one-person show exploring kindness, cruelty, how each affects people, and our ability to choose.

What is Joygernaut?

Buy tickets to see the show…

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Tell me your real-life stories of kindness

tell me your story

What they say…

  • “I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I’ll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else.”
    Roald Dahl
  • “There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
    Kurt Vonnegut
  • “No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.”
    Amelia Earhart
  • “A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.”
    Winnie-the-Pooh (via A.A. Milne)
  • “Always try to be a little kinder than is necessary.”
    J.M. Barrie
  • “Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
    
Mark Twain
  • “Everybody is ‘you’. Everybody is ‘I’. That’s our name. We all share that.”
    Alan Watts
  • “How far that little candle throws his beams! / So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
    William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice
  • “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”
    Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • “Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.”
    Henry James
  • “Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”
    Lao Tzu
  • “The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with joy are goodness, beauty, and truth.”
    Albert Einstein
  • “Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.”
    Seneca
  • “The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.”
    Oscar Wilde
  • “When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”
    Maya Angelou
  • “She’s known sadness, and it has made her kind”
    Nathan Filer
  • “Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now. That’s the story. That’s the message. Nobody understands it, nobody listens, they’re all running around like chickens with heads cut off.”
    Jack Kerouac
  • “So, don’t believe anyone who says that since nature is based on a struggle for life, we need to live like this as well. Many animals survive not by eliminating each other or keeping everything for themselves, but by cooperating and sharing.”
    Frans de Waal
  • “Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity.”
    Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

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Further Reading

Some scientific explanations of kindness and some practicable processes you can follow to gradually re-wire your brain for happiness.

Read more