The good that people do

Melanie Phillips on the kindness of strangers:

We journalists spend much of our lives highlighting the iniquities and other intolerable acts visited by our fellow human beings upon each other. So much is, sadly, all too necessary. What we are much less good at, however, is showing the good that people do.

Sure, we commemorate deeds of heroism, extraordinary feats of valour or derring-do. But we tend to overlook the small, daily things which are actually the largest of all because they so greatly expand our humanity - the innumerable acts of kindness or love with which people bring consolation to the afflicted and make a better world.

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