Quotes About Compassion

Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them.

In the ring, our opponents can gouge us with their nails or butt us with their heads and leave a bruise, but we don't denounce them for it or get upset with them or regard them from then on as violent types. We just keep an eye on them after that. Not out of hatred or suspicion. Just keeping a friendly distance. We need to do that in other areas. We need to excuse what our sparring partners do, and just keep our distance—without suspicion or hatred.

We were made, Marcus tells us over and over, not for ourselves but for others, and our nature is fundamentally unselfish. In our relationships with others we must work for their collective good, while treating them justly and fairly as individuals.

From Sextus, a benevolent disposition, and the example of a family governed in a fatherly manner, and the idea of living conformably to nature; and gravity without affectation, and to look carefully after the interests of friends, and to tolerate ignorant persons, and those who form opinions without consideration:

When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you'll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger.

you have grown beyond supposing such actions to be either good or bad, and therefore it will be so much the easier to be tolerant of another's blindness.

4. To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice—it degrades you.

With each person you meet, remind yourself that you share a common humanity. You are members of the same family. They may not know this, but you do—so show them by the way you treat them.

Either teach them better if it be in thy power; or if it be not, remember that for this use, to bear with them patiently, was mildness and goodness granted unto thee.

It is royal to do good and to be abused.

Think of thy last hour. Let the wrong which is done by a man stay there where the wrong was done.

Similarly, man is born for deeds of kindness; and when he has done a kindly action, or otherwise served the common welfare, he has done what he was made for, and has received his quittance.

39. The things ordained for you -- teach yourself to be at one with those. And the people who share them with you -- treat them with love. With real love.

That bees don't behave like this—or any other animals with a sense of community. Don't do it sardonically or meanly, but affectionately—with no hatred in your heart. And not ex cathedra or to impress third parties, but speaking directly. Even if there are other people around.

and to be easy and ready to be reconciled, and well pleased again with them that had offended me, as soon as any of them would be content to seek unto me again.

It's courtesy and kindness that define a human being

The noblest kind retribution is to become not like your enemy

42. I have no right to do myself an injury. Have I ever injured anyone else if I could avoid it?

nunca se sabe ao certo quando os homens incorrem em erro, pois muitas das suas ações, que nos parecem perversas a primeira vista, são feitas com boas intenções, ou ao menos sem más intenções. É necessário conhecer inúmeros pormenores e circunstâncias antes de poder julgar com alguma segurança a conduta alheia.

Love all people, including those who do wrong. They may be acting unintentionally, out of ignorance. Even if they are acting intentionally, they can't harm you—that is, they can't make you a worse person than before. Only you can harm yourself, by fanning the flames of hatred and resentment. When someone wrongs you, identify the mistaken ideas that motivated their behavior. Then, instead of being angry, you'll pity them.

Be concerned only that your own thoughts, words, and actions are just and generous. In the race of life, stay in your own lane and focus on the finish line; don't gawk at the missteps of others.

People find pleasure in different ways. I find it in keeping my mind clear. In not turning away from people or the things that happen to them. In accepting and welcoming everything I see. In treating each thing as it deserves.

If it does not harm the community, it does not harm its members. When you think you've been injured, apply this rule: If the community isn't injured by it, neither am I. And if it is, anger is not the answer. Show the offender where he went wrong.

X. Of Catulus, not to contemn any friend's expostulation, though unjust, but to strive to reduce him to his former disposition: freely and heartily to speak well of all my masters upon any occasion, as it is reported of Domitius, and Athenodotus: and to love my children with true affection.