Quotes About Compassion

A warrior did not walk away from a wounded friend.

Forgiving doesn't make the person who hurt you feel better, it makes you feel better.

I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door who looks like you. What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see, who's very far away, who's a different colour, who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders.

Our humanity is contingent on the humanity of our fellows. No person or group can be human alone. We rise above the animal together, or not at all. If we learned that lesson even this late in the day, we would have taken a truly millennial step forward.

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation. This is what I try to tell my students: this is one great thing that literature can do - it can make us identify with situations and people far away.

People are wrong when they tell you that Conrad was on the side of Africans because his story showed great compassion towards them. Africans are not really served by his compassion, whatever it means; they ask for one thing alone – to be seen for what they are: human beings. Conrad pulls back from granting them this favour in Heart of Darkness.

But let the slave who sees another cast into a shallow grave know that he will be buried in the same way when his day comes.

The poor of the world may be guilty of this and that particular fault or foolishness, but if we are fair we will admit that nothing they have done or left undone quite explains all the odds we see stacked up against them. We are sometimes tempted to look upon the poor as so many ne'er-do-wells we can simply ignore. But they will return to haunt our peace, because they are greater than their badge of suffering, because they are human.

If we put ourselves between the god and his victim we may receive blows intended for the offender. When a man blasphemes, what do we do? Do we go and stop his mouth? No. We put our fingers into our ears to stop us hearing. That is a wise action.

And besides do not our people say that he is a fool who treats his brother worse than a stranger?

Did not our elders tell us that as soon as we shake hands with a leper he will want an embrace?

The real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.

For whom is it well, for whom is it well. There is no one for whom it is well.

For whom is it well, for whom is it well? For no one for whom it is well.

How can I forgive if you are not ready to give up that which caused you to stumble?

First comes peace. Then joy. Then love. And finally understanding.

veáis precisado a combatir con algún caballero, acordaos de lo que ahora os quiero decir y rogar: si vos lo vencéis, de modo que él ya no pueda defenderse de vos ni oponérseos y se vea obligado a ponerse en vuestra merced, pensad en tenerle merced y a pesar de ello no lo matéis.

She didn't care so much whether the world would ever forgive her people; but she did hope that someday, somehow, she would be able to forgive herself.

I'm not sure I can think of anything sadder than a homeless person with a homeless dog.

Sometimes I believe we would all be better off if we always treated people like this was the last time we were ever going to see them

As a species, we're either very resilient or super callous. I don't know which.

Tsunamis. School shootings. Syria. We watch it, we read about it, and then we move on. As a species, we're either very resilient or super callous. I don't know which.

But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Serbs and the Rwandans.

But I know well that no good ever comes from mistaking manners for kindness.