Quotes About Compassion

One practical way to do this is to look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them.

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another and all involved in one another. —THOMAS MERTON

It's easy to avoid suffering and easier to feel disconnected from the people experiencing

It's easy to talk about being merciful and compassionate," I said to my donkey. "It's not so easy to figure out how to live that way.

Humans have a need for compassion, but they also have a lot of anger, envy, frustration, and resentment, all the enemies of compassion.

We are human, and we suffer, and unlike the animals on the farm, we are self-aware, and we know that we suffer, and it doesn't hurt more or less if God caused it or could stop it, at least for me. I am definitely of the school that believes God has bigger stuff to worry about than me.

Our task, wrote Einstein, is to liberate ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

Speak for me. Help me to make the decisions that I cannot make. Do not ask me to tell you when it's time for me to go, for that is beyond my simple province. I love you and trust you, and I have depended on you all of my life to make decisions for me. Now, when I need you the most, do not fail me. Whatever you decide, I know it will be your best decision, and I wish you nothing but peace with it.

Is a connected medium the same as a compassionate one? I don't think so.

Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.

There are times when it is prudent to turn the other cheek, especially when it comes to spouses, family members, and friends. Courtesy and love are contagious and are far more effective over the long-haul than trying to ruin the reputation and well-being of another. (Chapter 7)

All that is required to be a philanthropist is a passion for making a difference.

Preach the Gospel, and if you must, use words," comes to mind.

FIND OUT HOW MUCH GOD HAS GIVEN YOU AND FROM IT TAKE WHAT YOU NEED; THE REMAINDER IS NEEDED BY OTHERS.

No exercise is better for the human heart than reaching down and lifting another up.

No man is an island, No man stands alone; Each man's joy is joy to me, Each man's grief is my own. We need one another, So I will defend Each man as my brother, Each man as my friend.

In 1955, Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, "When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion—its message becomes meaningless.

With the help of the Gospel, which he began to listen to carefully, Francis began to break down the barriers to friendship inherent in his old worldview. Every person, he began to see, was at the most basic root the same.

Under no circumstances should the brothers receive money when they go out begging, cause it to be received by others, seek it or cause it to be sought, for any house or place. Likewise, they should never go out with any person seeking money or coin for such places.

But there are people too he says, everywhere there are people and I think it is easier to hold hands with people than it is with angels, yes?

Ask that we not allow ourselves to be overcome by a grief which is not ours to indulge but instead be uplifted by faith and enabled to help that suffering family in whatever way we are called to do

With the perspective afforded by the passage of time, where does 9/11 rank as a turning point in our national history? For the victims and their families, innocents going about their lives, suddenly and brutally murdered, no other day can ever matter as much.

In America, now, let us - Christian, Jew, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, wiccan, whatever - fight nativism with the same strength and conviction that we fight terrorism. My faith calls on its followers to love one's enemies. A tall order, that - perhaps the tallest of all.

In our finest hours, though, the soul of the country manifests itself in an inclination to open our arms rather than to clench our fists;