What's the nicest compliment you have ever received?

[Anonymous]

In college I had a tough class with a tough professor who assigned us a paper due every Friday. I was one of those students who shrunk behind her classmates in the back of the room, so the professor barely knew me. But on one of my papers, he wrote: "I spend all weekend reading over hundreds of these papers and of all of these, yours are truly a pleasure to read." I will never forget that!

[Anonymous]

"You are functioning at a level higher than many experienced attorneys" -- a judge I appeared in front of as a third-year law student.

"At least I have the privilege of looking at those pretty legs" -- Homeless man when I declined to give him money

"Mama, Mama, MY Mama. My, My Mama mine." My daughter. For some reason this just thrills me.

[Anonymous]

"I never would have guessed. She's so nice and such a good daughter." My mother's hospital nurse, when she was dying of cancer and I took time off to be with her, after my mother "bragged" to her about my professional accomplishments.

[Anonymous]

"I married the best person I've ever known" from my husband saying it to his brother.

[Anonymous]

This story isn't too much of a compliment, but it is kind of amusing.

I began to get gray hair at a young age. I had strands of gray hair even as a teenager. By the time I was thirty I was fairly gray all over. I was a thirty year old gray haired bachelor.

Socially -- not a good thing.

So, I started dying my hair brown to be what I considered more age appropriate and I continued to do so until I was forty-five. By that time my age and wrinkles had caught up to my hair.

I happen to be a school teacher and over the course of a summer, I let the dyed hair grow out and I returned to school in September with totally gray -- actually white hair. I got a few strange looks on my first day back, but clearly my colleagues and most of my former students were able to quickly figure it out.

However, one former student did approach me with the utmost sincerity and he said, "Mr. ----, whyyyy did you dye your hair gray???".

He was a sweet and sincere kid. I tried to explain that it was the exact opposite of what he had thought, but he still seemed to walk away at least a little puzzled.

It's a great job. Not a single day passes that there is not at least one event that makes you smile.

[Anonymous]

I have an anxious child, and I took some time to talk to another mom about her anxious child, probably an hour or two. (the child is younger than mine, but shares many of the same traits)

About five months later, I bumped into her and she told me that I had changed her life as a parent...she felt so much better after she talked to me. She said that I used humor, patience, and sense that inspired her and gave her hope. Needless to say, I was shocked.

You just never know when you will say something that really affects someone...felt really good.

[Anonymous]

You're a better daughter than I ever was.

[Anonymous]

Thanks PP for bringing back a really great thread.

My sister told me just this past mother's day - "You have taught me so much over the years, that's how I know your children are so blessed to have you as a mother."

It made me cry.

[Anonymous]

You're a great mother - from my nanny.

[Anonymous]

My 2nd grader - "you should be a school counselor because you're really good at helping kids with their problems".

[Anonymous]

It's a tie:

My ex-MIL - "Letting you go is the biggest mistake my son have ever made"

My mother - "You are the best thing I ever did"

[Anonymous]

"You're a great mom" from son's day care teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:25 years ago in college, all the black organizations (frats, civil rights groups, anti-apartheid group, etc) staged sit-ins throughout classrooms, faculty office buildings, the student newspaper offices, the student government offices and any other place they could think of to protest a newly announced policy that was going to disproportionately affect them. After days of effectively shutting down campus life, the college president asked the leader of the sit-in protest how they could resolve the situation. The leader said that they wanted me, a fellow student who was white and held a high rank in the student government, to come up with a solution because he and others in their sit-in leadership thought I was "a fair person." I was stunned and boy did it have an effect on me. Fairness and equity became cornerstones of my professional life and as well as the way I mother my twins.

Thread winner.

[Anonymous]

HS teacher wrote as feedback on my final paper that it "ranked among the best papers I've read in my career."

[Anonymous]

You're a better mother than I ever was.
(It's true, but wow, was it something to hear it.)