Quotes About Compassion

To my way of thinking there's something wrong, or missing, with any person who hasn't got a soft spot in their heart for an animal of some kind. With most folks the dog stands highest as man's friend, then comes the horse, with others the cat is liked best as a pet, or a monkey is fussed over; but whatever kind of animal it is a person likes, it's all hunkydory so long as there's a place in the heart for one or a few of them.

You look at me like I have something to be sad about. My existence makes you grateful you are not me.

One of the many annoying things about being disabled is the obligation I always feel to make you feel better about your reactions to me.

Take it from someone using the chair: people who do not use chairs do not like to talk about the chair. They are so worried about saying the wrong thing that they either don't say anything at all or, more likely . . . they say the wrong thing. But that's OK too! I like talking about the chair! I like it when people ask me how I'm feeling. I like it when people remember there's a person in here.

Wir alle stehen in Verbindung miteinander, nicht nur sozial und auf körperlicher Ebene, sondern auch über den Strom unserer Gedanken und Emotionen, die einander durchdringen .... Verantwortungsgefühl, Verständnis, Mitgefühl, Liebe, Nicht-Verletzen - das sind die wahren Glieder der Kette, die uns verbindet, und sie müssen in unseren Herzen geschmiedet werden.

The best doctor in the world is the veterinarian. He can't ask his patients what is the matter-he's got to just know.

Personally, I have always felt that the best doctor in the world is the Veterinarian. He can't ask his patients what is the matter...he's just got to know.

A man that don't love a horse, there is something the matter with him.

when you're with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time.

But it takes so little to help people, and people really do help each other, even people with very little themselves. And it's not just about second chances. Most people deserve an endless number of chances.

And I'm also talking about kindness, not just about being nice. You can be gruff or abrupt and still be kind. Kindness has much more to do with what you do than how you do it.

in the eyes of her oldest friends and colleagues and extended family, she wasn't a painfully thin seventy-five-year-old gray haired woman dying of cancer- she was a grade school class president, the young friend you gossiped with, a date or double date, someone to share a tent with in Darfur, a fellow election monitor in Bosnia, a mentor, a teacher you'd laughed within a classroom or a faculty lounge, or the board member you'd groaned with after a contentious meeting

1. Ask: "Do you want to talk about how you're feeling?" 2. Don't ask if there's anything you can do. Suggest things, or if it's not intrusive, just do them. 3. You don't have to talk all the time. Sometimes just being there is enough.

And reading all different kinds of books is not simply reading all different kinds of books; it's a way of becoming more fully human and more humane.

Mom would often talk about a refugee boy she'd met in a hospital in Afghanistan. He was the victim of a land mine and had lost a leg. She said to him that she brought greetings to him from schoolchildren in New York. "Tell them not to worry about me," this little boy told her from his hospital bed. "I still have one leg.

His point: you don't have to travel the world to see the ways we mistreat one another; it's as close as the street outside our windows.

When I think back on all the refugee camps I visited, all over the world, the people always asked for the same thing: books. Sometimes even before medicine or shelter--they wanted books for their children. (quoting his mother)

He starts to whisper a prayer. "Whatever beings there are, may they be free from suffering. Whatever beings there are, may they be free from enmity. Whatever beings there are, may they be free from hurtfulness. Whatever beings there are, may they be free from ill health. Whatever beings there are, may they be able to protect their own happiness.

How does a doctor tell you that it's over, that there are things they could do but probably shouldn't, and that if your aim is quality of life and not quantity of life, there simply are no good next treatments?

I was learning that when you're with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time. Yet

What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation?" It helped you remember that people aren't here for you; everyone is here for one another.

You need to learn to recognize these things right from the start. Evil almost always starts with small cruelties.

But people can be cruel in lots of ways, some very subtle.

That's one of the amazing things great books like this do—they don't just get you to see the world differently, they get you to look at people, the people all around you, differently.