Quotes About Compassion

We speak with more than our mouths. We listen with more than our ears.

Real strength has to do with helping others.

You can't really love someone else unless you really love yourself first.

Taking care is one way to show your love. Another way is letting people take good care of you when you need it.

You know, I think everybody longs to be loved, and longs to know that he or she is lovable. And consequently, the greatest thing we can do is to help somebody know that they are loved and capable of loving.

All of us, at some time or other, need help. Whether we're giving or receiving help, each one of us has something valuable to bring to this world. That's one of the things that connects us as neighbors—in our own way, each one of us is a giver and a receiver.

There are times when explanations, no matter how reasonable, just don't seem to help.

Listening and trying to understand the needs of those we would communicate with seems to me to be the essential prerequisite of any real communication. And we might as well aim for real communication.

Imagine what our real neighbors would be like if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person. There have been so many stories about the lack of courtesy, the impatience of today's world, road rage and even restaurant rage. Sometimes, all it takes is one kind word to nourish another person. Think of the ripple effect that can be created when we nourish someone. One kind empathetic word has a wonderful way of turning into many.

Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors.

People have said "Don't cry" to other people for years and years, and all it has ever meant is "I'm too uncomfortable when you show your feelings: don't cry." I'd rather have them say, "Go ahead and cry. I'm here to be with you.

All we're ever asked to do in this life is to treat our neighbor—especially our neighbor who is in need—exactly as we would hope to be treated ourselves. That's our ultimate responsibility.

Love is at the root of everything. All learning, all parenting, all relationships. Love or the lack of it.

Let's take the gauntlet and make goodness attractive in this so-called next millennium. That's the real job that we have. I'm not talking about Pollyanna-ish kind of stuff. I'm talking about down-to-Earth actual goodness. People caring for each other in a myriad of ways rather than people knocking each other off all the time...What changes the world? The only thing that ever really changes the world is when somebody gets the idea that love can abound and can be shared.

I know that when I walk out of the studio someday and there is a child who has Downs Syndrome, for instance, and that child comes up and gives me a hug, I know that that's the field I want to be growing in. Because I see that people who are not the fancy people of this world are the ones who seem to nourish my soul. And I want to learn how to be the best receiver that I can ever be. Because I think graceful receiving is one of the most wonderful gifts we can give anybody.

Understanding love is one of the hardest things in the world.

Listening is a very active awareness of the coming together of at least two lives. Listening, as far as I'm concerned, is certainly a prerequisite of love. One of the most essential ways of saying "I love you" is being a receptive listener.

if we can allow ourselves to be gentle with ourselves no matter what our feelings may be, we have the chance of discovering the very deep roots of who we are.

No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we all are called to be tikkun olam, repairers of creation. Thank you for whatever you do, wherever you are, to bring joy and life and hope and faith and pardon and love to your neighbor and to yourself.

Mary Lou Kownacki: "There isn't anyone you couldn't love once you've heard their story.

The world is not always a kind place. That's something all children learn for themselves, whether we want them to or not, but it's something they really need our help to understand.

Some days, doing "the best we can" may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn't perfect—on any front—and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.

Deep within us—no matter who we are—there lives a feeling of wanting to be lovable, of wanting to be the kind of person that others like to be with. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.

Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.