milk of human kindness

Cultural

A phrase from Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, meaning humane feeling, concern for other people: “Everyone agreed that Houston was a brilliant thinker and an excellent lawyer, but some people worried that he lacked the milk of human kindness.”

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Its final scene, the culmination of a relentless series of hardships, losses and deaths, offers a moment of startling compassion and intimacy — the very milk of human kindness made flesh.

From Washington Post • Feb. 14, 2019

We gave ’em a chance to pretend that their phony hearts were dripping with the milk of human kindness.

From The New Yorker • Feb. 4, 2019

Lady Macbeth worries that her husband is "too full o' th' milk of human kindness".

From BBC • Apr. 20, 2016

They've allowed the milk of human kindness nowhere near this production, but that is the way it had to be.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 25, 2014

Not that she had suddenly become filled with the milk of human kindness.

From "The Wednesday Wars" by Gary D. Schmidt

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023