“Kindness in words creates confidence”: did Laozi say it?
Not in the Dao De Jing
No: “Kindness in words creates confidence” is not in the Dao De Jing; at most it is a distant echo of chapter 8, 言善信, “in speech, good at trust”, where 善 means “good at”, not kindness.
Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
The nearest lines in the Dao De Jing
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上善若水。
The highest good is like water.
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居善地，心善渊，
In dwelling, good at choosing the ground; in the mind, good at depth;
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与善仁，言善信，
in giving, good at humaneness; in speech, good at trust;
What the Chinese says
Chapter 8 describes water, and the good person, in seven short phrases built the same way: a field of life, 善 (“good at”), and a quality. Three of them line up with the circulating saying: 心善渊, “in the mind, good at depth”; 与善仁, “in giving, good at humaneness”; 言善信, “in speech, good at trust”. Mind, giving and speech, with depth, humaneness and trust: the saying has thinking, giving and words, with profoundness, love and confidence.
How close it comes
The saying reads 善 as “kindness” and turns each phrase into cause and effect: kindness in words creates confidence. In the Chinese, 善 is being good at something, and nothing causes anything: the phrases list what water, and the good person, do well. 信 is being true to one's word, not the confidence one inspires; 仁 is humaneness, not love. The match is our reading: no source we found names chapter 8. Wikiquote calls the saying of unknown origin. Stefan Stenudd, who keeps a list of sayings wrongly credited to Laozi, finds it first in Bernard Raskas's Living Thoughts (1976) and then in Laurence J. Peter's Peter's Quotations (1977), both crediting Laozi without a chapter, and names chapter 8 or chapter 67 as possible distant sources.