“Kindness is not niceness.”

I will never forget the first time someone called me “nice” at work, and how obvious it was that this was not a compliment.  I silently vowed to crush them with my ferocious niceness, which I must admit felt pretty good.  But how I wish I had replied instead, “I’m not nice, I’m kind.”

Professor Kimberley Patton made this distinction part of her address at Harvard Divinity School graduation ceremonies this past week, and it is revolutionary:  kindness as strength, as a “powerful and subversive thing”.

Read more about this terrific address (and the general awesomeness of HDS and its ceremonies) here.

Check out our newly updated Honeybee library of top commencement talks here.

As I was writing the above, Ellevate Network re-posted a quote from me about kindness.  Sometimes we need to be reminded of our own words!  You can see this plus more from Ellevate members here.