Quotes About Compassion

To be a satirist, at all events. The venom of Pope is what is needed. The sense of delight -- the expansion and the compassion of Shakespeare is no good at all for that. He is a bad comic.

Thank God my parents had an abundance of patience.

I truly believe that the ultimate measure of one's success in life is not what position you have occupied or how much money you have, but what kind of person you have become, what difference you have made to the people around you.

I'm so sorry to do this to you," she whispered tenderly. "I'm so sorry we are too poor to buy you a toy car.

He had never disagreed with anyone in his life, no matter how unfairly they may have treated him. He preferred to swallow his tears, suppress his anger and bitterness; he would bear anything rather than oppose a person directly. Nor did it ever occur to him to wonder whether this forbearance might not be harmful to others.

Looking at this immensely swollen face in front of him the doctor gently consoled the patient, "Comrade, don't worry and you will recover." As a matter of fact, he was thinking quite the opposite, "You will die. I can be of no more help."

Before my eyes are many miserable scenes, the suffering of others and myself forces my hands to move. I become a machine for writing.

He [the informer] was a poor weak human being like themselves, a human soul, weak and helpless in suffering, shivering in the toils of the eternal struggle of the human soul with pain.

Nunca he matado a un hombre desarmado y nunca he asesinado por placer.

Don't you know the man whose life you spare will always hate you?

There is no Hell, other than that which men make on earth.

You should never despise people because they haven't had your opportunities.

I lost interest in the condition of humans, but I never lost interest in the human condition.

I try to instill [in my daughters] a higher moral code, one that is far more vulnerable to decency and goodness. I want my girls to find reasons to enjoy all the people in their lives, even if it means they have to tap into every creative well in their soul to do so. I want them to truly, way down deep in their hearts, know that all people... are worthy, viable, and exceptional beings who have much to give and even more to share.

I have learned to accept the fact that I will make mistakes at nearly every turn, but that those mistakes can be softened if I am honest about who I am to my girls.

I don't know why I did it, except that I understand now that desperate, clumsy desire to make people feel better -even when you know perfectly well that nothing will.

All conflict can be traced back to someone's feelings getting hurt, don't you think?

You could try as hard as you could to imagine someone else's tragedy—drowning in icy waters, living in a city split by a wall—but nothing truly hurts until it happens to you. Most of all, to your child.

Bonnie and her mum are both members of Amnesty International," said Abigail. "Of course they are," murmured Madeline. This must be how Jennifer Aniston feels, thought Madeline, whenever she hears about Angelina and Brad adopting another orphan or two.

The words "I´m sorry" felt like an insult. You said "I´m sorry" when you bumped against someone´s supermarket trolley. There need to be bigger words.

She had too much imagination. Too much empathy [...] there was real pain in the world, right this very moment people were suffering unimaginable atrocities and you couldn't close your heart completely, but you couldn't leave it wide open either, because otherwise how could you possibly live your life, when through pure, random luck you got to live in paradise?

the world, right this very moment people were suffering unimaginable atrocities and you couldn't close your heart completely, but you couldn't leave it wide open either, because otherwise how could you possibly live your life, when through pure, random luck you got to live in paradise? You had to register the existence of evil, do the little that you could, and then close your mind and think about new shoes.

There was nothing worse than having to feel sorry for people who had wronged you. You don't want lottery wins for your enemies, but you don't want tragedies for them either. Then they got the upper hand. Damn those Delaneys.

If her back had ever hurt like this when she was twenty she would have been hysterical, demanding painkillers and cups of tea in bed, but she has found that nobody is especially surprised to hear you're in pain when you're in your eighties. You might find it astonishing, but nobody else does.