Quotes About Compassion

What are my books but one plea against man's inhumanity to man --to woman-- and to the lower animals?

Izz spoke with a magnanimous abandonment of herself to the situation; she could not be—no woman with a heart bigger than a hazel-nut could be—antagonistic to Tess in her presence, the influence which she exercised over those of her own sex being of a warmth and strength quite unusual, curiously overpowering the less worthy feminine feelings of spite and rivalry.

There's more for us to think about in that one little hungry heart than in all the stars of the sky…

Cry about one thing in life, cry about all; one thread runs through the whole piece.

Don't for God's sake speak as saint to sinner, but as you yourself to me myself - poor me!

O merciful God, have pity; have pity upon my poor baby! she cried. Heap as much anger as you want to upon me, and welcome; but pity the child!

Oak was just thinking that whatever he himself might have suffered from Bathsheba's marriage, here was a man who had suffered more, when Boldwood spoke in a changed voice—that of one who yearned to make a confidence and relieve his heart by an outpouring.

She was carrying an armful of Bibles for her class, and such was her view of life that events which produced heartache in others wrought beatific smiles upon her - an enviable result, although, in the opinion of Angel, it was obtained by a curiously unnatural sacrifice of humanity to mysticism.

Oh, my poor friend and comrade, you'll suffer yet!

This question of a woman telling her story—the heaviest of crosses to herself—seemed but amusement to others. It was as if people should laugh at martyrdom.

With the impulse of a soul who could feel for kindred sufferers as much as for herself, Tess's first thought was to put the still living birds out of their torture, and to this end with her own hands she broke the necks of as many as she could

The beggarly question of parentage...what is it after all? What does it matter,when you come to think of it, wheter a child is yours by blood or not? All the little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people's, is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom.

It's easy to mistake understanding for empathy - we want empathy so badly. Maybe learning to make that distinction is part of growing up. It's hard and ugly to know somebody can understand you without even liking you.

Every person is worth your time, Hannibal. If at first appearance a person seems dull, then look harder, look into him.

You didn't draw a freak. You drew a man with a freak on his back. Nothing wrong with you, kid.

Flog no one else with meat.

it is incident most to them that are conscious of the fewest abilities in themselves who are forced to keep themselves in their own favor by observing the imperfections of other men. And therefore much laughter at the defects of others is a sign of pusillanimity. For of great minds, one of the proper works is to help and free others from scorn, and compare themselves only with the most able.

My life for yours: it may mean three seconds of my time to redeem some thoughtless bit of self-indulgence on the part of someone else, or it may mean, or did mean, Golgotha, where My Life for Yours was supremely dramatized and entails our eternal joy.

I have been offered the noble opportunity to join my voice with that of the Crucified as He cries out, 'Father, forgive them.

The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom.

Me, me, me is dull, dull, dull.

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment . . . inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.

Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love.

Do not be too severe upon the errors of the people, but reclaim them by enlightening them.