Quotes About Compassion

Despite the mayhem that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go.

He looked down and did something quite out of character for him: he took hold of Shmuel's tiny hand in his and squeezed it tightly. "You're my best friend, Shmuel," he said. "My best friend for life.

Maybe there were no villains in my mother's story at all. Just men and women, trying to do their best by each other. And failing.

only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all.

Very slowly he turned his head back to look at Shmuel, who wasn't crying anymore, merely staring at the floor and looking as if he was trying to convince his soul not to live inside his tiny body anymore, but to slip away and sail to the door and rise up into the sky, gliding through the clouds until it was very far away.'' -The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Bruno: Why do you wear pajamas all day? Shmuel: The soldiers. They took all our clothes away. Bruno: My dad's a soldier, but not the sort that takes people's clothes away.

But still there are moments when a brother and sister can lay down their instruments of torture for a moment and speak as civilized human beings and Bruno decided to make this one of those moments.

Love is for everybody.

A recent study found that non-abused six- to fourteen-month-olds who showed disregard for others' distress were significantly more likely to be antisocial as adolescents.

Are humans ever really capable of regarding others as ends in themselves?

Human beings are the unequivocal world champions of niceness. We act kindly not only toward people who belong to our own social groups or can reciprocate our generosity but also toward strangers thousands of miles away who will never know we helped them. All around the world, people sacrifice their resources, well-being, and even their lives in the service of others.

seminary students in a rush were far less likely to help a stranger than were seminary students who weren't late, in the experiment performed by John M. Darley and Dan Batson).

It's an illusion to believe that you can be happy when no one else is. Or that other people will not be affected by your unhappiness.

We'd be unfeeling, unconscious zombies if we did.

It is not a case we are treating; it is a living, palpitating, alas, too often suffering fellow creature.

If there is such a phenomenon as absolute evil, it consists in treating another human being as a thing.

as though, capable themselves of suffering, they granted no reality to the suffering of others. 'The subject exhibited a pain response.' But not, under any circumstances, we hurt her .

The true definition of a snob is one who craves for what separates men rather than for what unites them.

According to your sympathy, you will take pleasure in your own happiness or in the happiness of other people but it is always your own happiness you seek.

Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves.

You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.

I want to venture a hypothesis that, roughly expressed, goes like this: you cannot learn to love yourself until you find something in the world to love; no matter what it is. A dog, a garden, a tree,a flight of birds, a friend...Because what we love in ourselves is ourselves loving.

Who are we to make such a decision? To allow another living being - any living being - to die, when ours is the power to prevent it? - Reed Richards (Mister Fantastic)

I've noticed that there is danger in spending all this time writing about those "publicans and sinners" over there in the great and spacious building. If our spot near the tree of life becomes a Rameumptom where we congratulate each other on our chosen-ness and look down on everyone else, then we're occupying nothing more than a branch office of the great and spacious.