Quotes About Compassion

The danger of sympathizing with the stranger is the possibility of becoming a stranger.

I hurt just like them white women. Just 'cause I wasn't hooping and hollering before didn't mean I wasn't feeling pain. What'd they think? That just 'cause I knowed how to have a baby with no fuss that my behind wasn't pulling and aching like theirs?

And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive, we were not free, merely licensed, we were not compassionate, we were polite, not good, but well behaved.

I wish I'd a knowed more people. I would of loved 'em all. If I'd a knowed more, I would a loved more.

If you do not feed the hungry, they will eat you, and the manner of their eating is as varied as it is FIERCE.

It hurt him, he would say, deeply hurt him, after all these years, but if you loved somebody as he did her, you had to think of them first. You couldn't be selfish with somebody you loved.

Plenty should not be regulated to a paradisiacal state, but to normal, everyday, humane life.

No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence, even if it did wilt rows of angel trumpets and cause them to fall from their vines

Ashamed of the insults that were being heaped on our friend, we just sat there: I picked toe jam, Frieda cleaned her fingernails with her teeth, and Pecola finger-traced some scars on her knee—her head cocked to one side.

Make a difference about something other than yourselves.

A person's love is only as good as the person; a stupid person loves stupidly, a violent man loves violently.

Maybe all he was really saying was: I am not responsible for your pain; share your happiness with me but not your unhappiness.

Adults do not talk to us—they give us directions. They issue orders without providing information. When we trip and fall down they glance at us; if we cut or bruise ourselves, they ask us are we crazy. When we catch colds, they shake their heads in disgust at our lack of consideration.

And in the night, when my coughing was dry and tough, feet padded into the room, hands repinned the flannel, readjusted the quilt, and rested a moment on my forehead. So when I think of autumn, I think of somebody with hands who does not want me to die.

I've broken an arm before, but no one wanted to shoot me!' Suzie says. 'I mean, when you go to the emergency room I hope to God the doctors don't decide it might cost too much to care for.' -Suzie Schwab co-owner of East Maui Animal Refuge

Too many of us are too comfortable in our "Jesus lifeboat." Instead of the church preparing its members to reach out to other people who are still in the water and pulling them into the boat, we have settled in for the ride to heaven and are busy coming up with ways to make the trip more comfortable. We go to church each week and worship God because we are saved and safe, forgetting that the lifeboat is not yet full.

Biblical love is a choice to do good for another person regardless of what we feel. It is a decision to compassionately and righteously pursue the betterment of another person. This is why you can even love your enemies according to Christ's command.

If I asked her in what ways you have adjusted your plans and schedule in the past month because you saw that she had a burden or a need you could help meet, would she be able to recall such times?

A man once told me, "Tony, my wife is killing me." I replied, "Well, you said you wanted to be more like Jesus, didn't you?

God has commanded us to love our wives even when they don't deserve it—for if we love them only when they deserve it, where would grace be? In fact, we need to love our wives the most when they deserve it the least.

All evil begins with this belief: that another's existence is less precious than mine.

The only way to know God, the only way to know the other, is to listen. Listening is reaching out into that unknown other self, surmounting your walls and theirs; listening is the beginning of understanding, the first exercise of love. None of us listen enough, do we, dear? We only listen to a fraction of what people say. It's a wonderfully useful thing to do. You almost always hear something you didn't expect.

Remember: God's grief at the unspeakable things we do to one another is beyond measuring, but so is His mercy. It might seem a terrible thing to say to people who've lost and suffered so much at the hands of hatred and violence. But true courage is not to hate our enemy, any more than to fight and kill him. To love him, to love in the teeth of his hate—that is real bravery. That ought to earn people m-m-medals.

Blessed are the generous, for they know their riches belong to others. Blessed