Quotes About Compassion

Fire cannot be put out with more fire.

We are human beings first and last. Our religion is faith in Humanity - and there can be no religion greater than that.

You discover that it takes far more courage to transform the impulse toward justified violence into the embrace of a supposed adversary.

between human beings there are only two alternatives, either brotherhood or crime.

And what about all the good I have in my heart—doesn't it mean anything?

You can know a man by his devils and the way he gives hurts.

I once was married," said Padilla when the subject came to that. "In Chihuahua when I was fifteen. I had a kid before I was a man myself." I didn't approve of his boasting that he had left a wife and kid behind in Mexico, but then the tall girl said she had a child too, and maybe the other did also and just didn't say, and so I let the subject pass, since if so many do the same wrong there maybe is something to it that's not right away apparent.

Every man realizes that he has to love something or somebody. He feels that he must go outward. 'If thou canst not love, what art thou?

A good man can bear to listen to another talk about himself.

There were people who believed Herzog was rather simple, that his humane feelings were childish. That he had been spared the destruction of certain sentiments as the pet goose is spared the axe.

History is the history of cruelty, not love, as soft men think.

there is a life to come – wait and see – and that in the life to come we will feel the pains that we inflicted on others. We will suffer all that we made them suffer, for after death all experience is reversed.

It never seems to occur to such criminals that to behave with decency to another human being might also be gratuitous.

And although not convinced by her, I wasn't utterly horrified for the unborn either. To be completely consistent in that kind of economy of souls you would have to have great uneasiness and remorse that wombs should ever be unoccupied; likewise, that hospitals, prisons, and madhouses and graves should ever be full. That wide a spread is too much.

You shop in supermarkets, you say good morning to friends on the telephone, you hear symphony orchestras on the radio. But suddenly the music stops and a terrorist bomb is reported. A new explosion outside a coffee shop on the Jaffa Road: six young people killed and thirty-eight more wounded. Pained, you put down your civilized drink.

Those who are most moral are farthest from the problem.

People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others.

Some writers, notably Anton Chekov, argue that all characters must be admirable, because once we've looked at anyone deeply enough and understood their motivation we must identify with them rather than judge them.

Even if you did drop into someone's consciousness, you'd have all their memories and desires and hang-ups right there in front of you. And as you say, in an eternity you'd get the chance to know everything once enough time had passed. You'd become unable to judge anyone.' 'You'd end up being completely compassionate,' I said. 'You wouldn't be able to judge someone once you understood them and their motivations. You'd become them, like Rowan said, and so it would be like judging yourself.

La seule chose que nous apprend la mort, (c'est) qu'il est urgent d'aimer

To be shocked at how deeply rejection hurts is to ignore what acceptance involves. We must never allow our suffering to be compounded by suggestions that there is something odd in suffering so deeply. There would be something amiss if we didn't.

One simple test of the claim that the pleasure in the world outweighs the pain…is to compare the feelings of an animal that is devouring another with those of the animal being devoured.

man is the only animal which causes pain to others with no other object than causing pain…No animal ever torments another for the sake of tormenting: but man does so, and it is this which constitutes the diabolical nature which is far worse than the merely bestial

it is not belief to say God exists and then continue sinning and hoarding your wealth while innocent people die of starvation. When belief does not control your most important decisions, it is not belief in the underlying reality, it is belief in the usefulness of believing.