Quotes About Compassion

We had each caused so much pain for each other-yet the love I felt for him was stronger than ever. It was unconditional. I imagined his love for me would be unconditional as well, and maybe, instead of screaming or talking through the terrible mistakes we'd made, all we'd have to would be to look in each other's eyes and say nothing, just touch each other's cheeks, and love each other. That might be enough.

I didn't notice I was crying until a stewardess came by and gave me a tissue to blow my nose in. Her arm and wrist were slender and they formed a pretty arch, like the limb of a fruit tree, as she poked the tissue into my clenched fist. She didn't look at my eyes. It was a perfect gesture, an expression of indifference and concern, which is the most a drunk can ask for.

As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another.

Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness: on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming at something else, they find happiness by the way.

It is part of the irony of life that the strongest feelings of devoted gratitude of which human nature seems to be susceptible, are called forth in human beings towards those who, having the power entirely to crush their earthly existence, voluntarily refrain from using that power.

On the average, a person who cares for other people, for his country, or for mankind, is a happier man than one who does not; but of what use is it to preach this doctrine to a man who cares for nothing but his own ease, or his own pocket? He cannot care for other people if he would. It is like preaching to the worm who crawls on the ground, how much better it would be for him if he were an eagle.

All honor to those who can abnegate for themselves the personal enjoyment of life, when by such renunciation they contribute worthily to increase the amount of happiness in the world; but he who does it, or professes to do it, for any other purpose, is no more deserving of admiration than the ascetic mounted on his pillar.

When people who are tolerably fortunate in their outward lot do not find in life sufficient enjoyment to make it valuable to them, the cause generally is, caring for nobody but themselves

Nothing is more natural to human beings, nor, up to a certain point in cultivation, more universal, than to estimate the pleasures and pains of others as deserving of regard exactly in proportion to their likeness to ourselves.

A simple test of a civilised human being is how they describe those who have treated them badly.

meaning where meaning is genuinely to be found — in families, in friends, in the passage of seasons, in nature, in simple ceremonies and rituals, in curiosity, generosity, compassion, and service to others, in a decent independence and privacy, in all the free and inexpensive things out of which real families, real friends, and real communities are built

Only when you feel good about yourself can you feel good about others.

Fill each day with life and heart. There is no pleasure in the world comparable to the delight and satisfaction that a good person takes in doing good.

We are cruel enough without meaning to be.

Did you rejoice for the one you saved, or weep for the one you lost? She could not do both, so she wept.

I'm going to tell people about the real me. This is the first time I can do it, because it's the first time I've really known myself. And I'm going to love. I'm going to care about people. And it looks like you're it.

If you have some respect for people as they are, you can be more effective in helping them to become better than they are.

Some people strengthen the society just by being the kind of people they are.

The most we can ask, the least we can give, is pity.

What about the boy? Ya gonna hang him too or just, beat'him up some more?

Call for the robin redbreast and the wren,Since o'er shady groves they hover,And with leaves and flowers do coverThe friendless bodies of unburied men.

Pure, unconditional love shines through when people put themselves—their own demands and agendas—aside and completely open to one another.

Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying it to any other purpose?

We should be rigorous in judging ourselves and gracious in judging others.