Quotes About Compassion

Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.

Life is short and we never have enough time for gladdening the hearts of those who travel the way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.

Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.

Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.

Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.

We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it.

Dare to love and to be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as those whom God has given you to love.

On a rigolé à la face de la lune […], et nos rires c'étaient des poings levés contre toute la misère […], pour lui dire qu'on n'avait même pas mal.

You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.

The immense majority of our species are candidates for humanity, and nothing more.

The germs of all things are in every heart, and the greatest criminals as well as the greatest heroes are but different modes of ourselves.

Whatever impatience we may feel towards our neighbor, and whatever indignation our race may rouse in us, we are chained one to another, and, companions in labour and misfortune, have everything to lose by mutual recrimination and reproach. Let us be silent as to each other's weakness, helpful, tolerant, many, tender towards each other! Or, if we cannot feel tenderness, may we at least feel pity!

How else to explain the right-wing charge that the poor, disabled, sick, and elderly are moochers and should fend for themselves? This is not simply an example of a kind of hardening of the culture, it is also part of a machinery of social and civic death that crushes any viable notion of the common good, public life, and the shared bonds and commitments that are necessary for community and democracy.

I sought for love on the highway, For love unselfish and pure, And found it in good deeds blooming, Tho' often in haunts obscure.

Have you felt, as I have, the impression to help someone only to find that what you were inspired to give was exactly what someone needed at that very moment? That is a wonderful assurance that God knows all of our needs and counts on us to fill the needs of others around us.

As never before, our world needs warmth in its cold, metallic heart, warmth to go on and face what has been made of human life, warmth to remain humane and kind.

Have you had a kindness shown? Pass it on; 'Twas not given for thee alone, Pass it on; Let it travel down the years, Let it wipe another's tears, 'Til in Heaven the deed appears - Pass it on.

Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind.

Glances of true beauty can be seen in the faces of those who live in true meekness.

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.

It often happens that a man is more humanely related to a cat or dog than to any human being.

Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.

As for doing good, that is one of the professions which are full.