Quotes About Compassion

one of the most heartbreaking conditions of life on Earth is that most of the animals we love... die so long before we do.

Isn't this what we want to know about those whom we care about? What is it like, we wonder at each meeting, in shared meals and secrets and silences, with each touch and glance, to be you?

We are always mistaking the suffering of others; it's either much worse than we think or not nearly so bad.

To respect people is one thing; to raise them up on a pedestal merely shows how deep a hole I've dug for myself.... True humility lies in forgiving myself for being so perplexingly human, and forgiving others for pretending they're any less human than I.

Hate is nothing, even in politics, hate is only temper and unhappiness; it's an accident. It is stupid and unkind to let it overtake one.

By the hungry, I will feed you. By the poor, I'll make you rich. By the broken, I will mend you. Tell me: which one is which?

As long as there are human beings, there will be the idea of brotherhood -- and an almost total inability to practice it.

The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, "I was wrong.

It's odd that the people who worry whether certain plays are "morally offensive" so rarely worry about the moral offensiveness of war, poverty, bigotry.

The French may be straining the truth in their famous saying that "to understand all is to forgive all"," but it is certainly true that the more we know of any given person, the harder it becomes to hate him.

when the createdness of the other person is not viewed as necessary as our own—then there is no reason (beyond expediency) to treat the other as a person. All injustice and cruelty come, basically, from this distorted view of reality.

But what is significant is that if you don't want to like and accept somebody, one excuse is as good as another. The objective facts don't matter, and the reasons are never as 'reasonable' as we like to think they are.

Nobody can misunderstand a child as much as his own parents.

When you rise in the morning, form a resolution to make the day a happy one for a fellow creature.

I think you can lower your weapon now.

You, of all people, deserve a happy ending. Despite everything that happened to you, you aren't bitter. You aren't cold. You've just retreated a little and been shy, and that's okay. If I were a fairy godmother, I would give you your heart's desire in an istant. And I would wipe away your tears and tell you not to cry. -Rachel to Julia

Knowing is the key to caring, and with caring there is hope that people will be motivated to take positive actions. They might not care even if they know, but they can't care if they are unaware.

The responses of friendliness, compassion, and appreciation that I felt ...--all situational permutations of basic goodwill--depended on my mind's being relaxed and alert enough to notice both what was happening around me and what was happening as my internal response. [p.50]

although I knew what issues had been most difficult for me in my life, I may not have known the depth of the feeling I had about them. ... When those stories, with their feelings, returned ... I paid attention to them. What I tell people now it, 'Try to keep your mind hospitable. This needs to visit for a while. Don't be afraid.' [p. 122]

One of the ways we build intimate relationships with other people is by sharing our fears with them, telling them the things that still frighten us. ... "When we begin to appreciate the ways in which people have been frightened in their lives, we can be compassionate toward them, rather than angry [p. 97].

Sometimes I think the only thing worth saying is "I love you.

Hatred will never cease by hatred, Only love will erase hatred, This is the eternal law.

He did not confuse compassion with passivity.

God is Love, my friends- nothing more, nothing less.