Quotes About Compassion

are challenged in this passage to discern who it is whom we treat as enemies—those we claim to love but don't, those who never sit at table with us, those we label and libel—and to convert enemies into neighbors by simply extending love to them. Love is to treat others as we treat ourselves, and it is the rugged commitment to be with someone as someone who is for them in order to foster Christlikeness.

we must learn to distinguish moral discernment from personal condemnation.2 This distinction—the ability to know what is good from what is bad and to be able to discern the difference versus the posture of condemning another person—enables us to see what Jesus prohibits in this passage.

John Wesley said this well: "The judging that Jesus condemns here is thinking about another person in a way that is contrary to love."3

As a rule, I don't like to laugh at the misfortune of others. The exception to that rule is if it's really, really funny.

Women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently.

You don't argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn't eat candy for dinner. You don't punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don't argue when a women tells you she's only making 80 cents to your dollar. It's the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles.

Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.

Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple effect with no logical end.

There's a big hole in people, even the long legged ones, and they eat and eat because they don't want to die; at least they want to revel in their misery for one more day, and they look back at me with suspicious eyes and then they go back to their dead life and dream of peace and love and compassion, and I continue to stare at them in a blurred stupor.

It's a cruel world, and unless you're blessed with some talent people will pay money to see, your friends are the only people who will get you where you need to go.

If you complain to someone, you assume that it's someone who really cares about you.

People who give a shit are sexy.

Focus on building up others, and your own sense of self-worth will improve. Some call these random acts of human kindness. But the truth is, acting unselfishly is not random at all. Instead, it is a conscious, concerted effort to make the world better by making someone else's life better. The bonus: you will be happier by doing it.

When your goal is bigger than you and you realize, in fact, so little of what you do is about you, that no one is paying much attention to you anyway, suddenly you can get out of your own way. If you're struggling with getting out of your own way, ask yourself who needs this that is not you. Do it for that person.

Be kind to your future self

If we treat people inhumanely, we should never be surprised when they return the favor.

Each of us must walk our own path, most of us blindly, and that whatever guidance we can give one another is a bonus.

I'm very pleased. Very, very pleased. But I really must ask—why the hell have men and women been throwing money in my kettle for the past half hour, telling me they're sorry for what happened in the Videnza?" "It's because they're sorry for what happened in the Videnza," said Galdo.

Gods, when did we discover how easy it is to be cruel to one another?

Familiarity has a way of filing the sharp edges off our feelings for other people. You'll see.

The world is cruel enough without our compounding it;

I more proudly take a speck from a man with empty pockets," said Sabetha, "than riches from a man whose purse stays heavy.

A glass poured on the ground for a stranger without friends.

give until they were out of sight of Tal Verrar. "Southeast by