Quotes About Compassion

You did not grow up in the gutter. Your mother housed you and fed and clothed you. But even if you had, your basic human dignity would not be the less. Why should a king be of more value as a human being than a vagabond?

Maybe they do not have a breaking point. But even if they do, do you care, Abby?

We know you are wretchedly unhappy and we cannot do much to ease the pain.

It was you who made my growing years bearable . . . You gave me everything you were able to give—you gave me love. It has been enough. It is the only thing that really matters, you know.

But it felt so good, so good to let someone else carry her burdens for just a little while.

And she had loved him before, ached for him, wanted his happiness. But she knew him fully now. Oh, there were still mysteries. One could never know every shadowed corner of another person.

For Allie would suffer for what she had done this night. And he would be the last person on this earth who could comfort her.

Algunas cosas pertenecían al corazón de cada cual.

He would do anything to put things right for her, though he knew from experience that no one could ever put someone else's life to rights. One could only listen and encourage and love. And hold when holding was appropriate.

Is it really possible that you can love me enough to forgive me?

And I believe he has suffered in his life. He has a sensitivity to the hurts of others that can have come only from personal experience.

Ah, don't lie to me, he said. Believe me, I want to understand, I want to forgive. When I see you and when I hold you, I cannot believe that you are capable of the villainy that I have accepted all these years. I want you, Elizabeth.

I do not expect you to understand, Mr. Cunningham. You do not have the experience to understand what has happened to me, just as I do not have the experience to understand what has happened to you in the course of your life. That is where human empathy comes in, he said. If we did not have it and cultivate it, Miss Westcott, we would not understand or sympathize with anyone, for we are all unique in our experience.

He had held her close for a full, silent hour, rocking her against him, soothing her numb pain, crying for both her and himself, though she herself had been unable to know the relief of tears.

Yes, she'd sure as hell made a lot of mistakes, but the last she checked no one could cast the first stone.

People, like Sybell, believe one can only sympathize with what one has experienced. That is why they are always saying, 'as a mother,' or 'as a wife.' If that were true the world would have to get on without sympathy, for no two people have the same experience. Only a shallow nature believes that a resemblance in two cups means that they both contain the same wine.

The decent, strong person had to do decent, strong things like love unlovable people and keep peace even when it wasn't easy.

God save us from idealists! They dream of a world without injustice, and what crime won't they commit to get it! I swear, Mirella, I'll settle for a world with good manners.

God will break your heart.

After all, Ignatius of Loyola, a soldier who had killed and whored and made a thorough mess of his soul, said you could judge prayer worthwhile simply if you could act more decently, think more clearly afterward. As D.W. once told him, "Son, sometimes it's enough just to act less like a shithead.

His greatest satisfaction as a priest was to grant absolution, to help people forgive themselves for not being perfect, make amends, and get on with life.

It no longer came as a surprise to John Candotti that people found him easy to confess to. He was tolerant of human failings and it was rarely difficult for him to say, Well, you screwed up. Everybody screws up. It's okay. His greatest satisfaction as a priest was to grant absolution, to help people forgive themselves for not being perfect, make amends, and get on with life.

Once I told Ha?anala about the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. . . . I told her how Abraham bargained with God for the lives of ten righteous men who might have lived there. She said to me, ?Abraham should have taken the babies from the cities. The babies were innocent.?

Who am I to judge a life misspent?