Quotes About Compassion

Living without expectations is hard but, when you can do it, good. Living without hope is harder, and that is bad. You have got to have hope, and you mustn't shirk it. Love, after all, 'hopeth all things.' But maybe you must learn, and it is hard learning, not to hope out loud, especially for other people. You must not let your hope turn into expectation.

No man will ever be whole and dignified and free except in the knowledge that the men around him are whole and dignified and free, and that the world itself is free of contempt and misuse.

It surely is far better to be disliked by somebody you don't love than by somebody you do. Even so, I mind. Even so, failing to love somebody is a failure.

If love could force my own thoughts over the edge of the world and out of time, then could I not see how even divine omnipotence might by the force of its own love be swayed down to the world? ...how it might, because it could know its own creatures only by compassion, put on mortal flesh, become a man, and walk among us, assume our nature and our fate, suffer our faults and our death?

Rats and roaches live by competition under the law of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy. It is impossible not to notice how little the proponents of the ideal of competition have to say about honesty, which is the fundamental economic virtue, and how very little they have to say about community, compassion, and mutual help.

The principle of neighborhood at home always implies the principle of charity abroad. (pg. 260, The Idea of a Local Economy)

Feel for others--in your pocket.

Sympathy is two hearts tugging at one load.

Take away health, wealth, and material success and all you have is each other. Maybe that's the place we should start.

Mercy begins with a deep awareness of one's own need for it. Whereas Alinsky first sees injustice in others, the man of mercy first sees sin within himself.

It is only the great hearted who can be true friends. The mean and cowardly, Can never know what true friendship means.

Never, if possible, lie down at night without being able to say: I have made one human being at least a little wiser, or a little happier, or at least a little better this day.

Do as you would be done by.

By what logical principle should the relief of death be granted only the terminally ill? Such a restriction is itself perverse. After all, the terminally ill face only a brief period of suffering. The chronically ill, or the healthy but bereft—they face a lifetime of agony. Why deny them the relief of a humane exit?

I saw how many people were poor and how many kids my age went to school hungry in the morning, which I don't think most of my contemporaries in racially segregated schools in the South thought very much about at the time.

It does no harm just once in a while to acknowledge that the whole country isn't in flames, that there are people in the country besides politicians, entertainers, and criminals.

The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.

The final need is unconditional love. This is a difficult concept for many to understand. I discuss this need further in Chapter 15.

The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.

Happiness is loving your enemies.

All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed. For after all, he was only human. He wasn't a dog.

Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.

Love is letting him win even though you know you could slaughter him.

A kiss on the nose does much toward turning aside anger.