Souls.........................

      Now, you may be an atheist, an agnostic, a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, or something else, but this posture of respect and reverence, this awareness of the infinite dignity of each person you meet, is a precondition for seeing people well. You may find the whole idea of God ridiculous, but I ask you to believe in the concept of a soul.  You may just be chatting with someone about the weather, but I ask you to assume that the person in front of you contains some piece of themselves that has no weight, size, color, or shape yet gives them infinite value and dignity.  If you consider that each person has a soul, you will be aware that each person has some transcendent spark inside them.  You will be aware that at the deepest level we are all equals.  We're not equal in might, intelligence, or wealth, but we are all equal on the level of our souls.  If you see the people you meet as precious souls, you'll probable wind up treating them well.

-David Brooks, How To Know A Person

Unleashed........................

      The Great Enrichment after 1800 came from human creativity unleashed by liberty and dignity for ordinary people, through trade-tested betterment resting on a new equality in the eyes of others, and spread by the overturning of monopoly in competition.

-Deirdre Nansen McCloskey,  Bourgeois Equality:  How Ideas, Not Capital Or Institutions Enriched The World

Generosity of spirit...............

 The most important thing is love of others.  Not necessarily a sugary, let's-all sing-'We-Are-The-World' kind of love, but a stable, meaningful generosity of spirit that enables us to do things for others—those we know and those we don't—because at base level we choose to give of ourselves. . . . So here's my working definition of generosity of spirit:  It is the commitment to treat a person with dignity and kindness regardless of how you feel about him or her.

-Mark Sanborn,  The Fred Factor