Quotes About Compassion

So many times people would come up to him after his lectures and say that they wished there were more like him. What do you mean? he would ask. Immediately they would realize what they had said and drop their heads. As if he didn't encounter people like himself every single day, at every single angle. As if he were the only sort of Palestinian they could stomach.

She expected no judgement and wanted no pity.

Once I thought we could never solve our conflict, we would continue hating each other forever, but it is not written anywhere that we have to go on killing each other. The hero makes a friend of his enemy. That's my duty. Don't thank me for doing it. That's all it is, my duty. When they killed my daughter they killed my fear. I can do anything now.

He was not interested in absolving the attackers, but he had to admit if he had been born under the same circumstances he would undoubtedly have become a fighter himself, maybe even the same sort of man who had murdered his son.

Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!

Les grands périls ont cela de beau qu'ils mettent en lumière la fraternité des inconnus.

Being willing to forgive is not the same as being weak. Indeed, it takes a great deal of strength to accept someone else's acknowledgment of their mistakes.

Forgive me for saying so, Your Highness, Clarissa said slowly, but for one as unaccustomed to good deeds as you, perhaps it would be best if you started with one on a smaller scale. Something like, I don't know, spreading bread crumbs for birds? Birds? Valentina stared at Clarissa as if she had sprouted wings and would fly off. Why on earth would I wish to feed birds? It was just a thought, Clarissa murmured.

Being willing to forgive is not the same as being weak.

Sometimes a man doesn't want to be strong. Sometimes a man just wants to be human.

Although," Gilley continued, "I have been contemplating adopting a puppy.

To the people who love you, you are beautiful already. This is not because they're blind to your shortcomings but because they so clearly see your soul. Your shortcomings then dim by comparison. The people who care about you are willing to let you be imperfect and beautiful, too. (20)

Because I was more often happy for other people, I got to spend more time being happy. And as I saw more light in everybody else, I seemed to have more myself. (250)

Man is originally characterized by his search for meaning rather than his search for himself. The more he forgets himself—giving himself to a cause or another person—the more human he is. And the more he is immersed and absorbed in something or someone other than himself the more he really becomes himself .

Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.

The truth-that love is the highest goal to which man can aspire.

The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.

No one has the right to do wrong, even if wrong has been done to them.

It is not for me to pass judgement on those prisoners who put their own people above everyone else. Who can throw a stone at a man who favors his friends under circumstances when, sooner or later, it is a question of life or death? No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.

From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two—the "race" of the decent man and the "race" of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people. In this sense, no group is of "pure race"—and therefore one occasionally found a decent fellow among the camp guards.

No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.

Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.

I believe that my handicap will only enhance my ability to help others. I know that without the suffering, the growth that I have achieved would have been impossible.

Only slowly could these men be guided back to the commonplace truth that no one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.