Quotes About Compassion

if you take loving kindness out of the human brain, there's not much left except the will to win

You remain with the person you've just been yelling at until the resentments fizzle. That's how wounds heal.

Of course, lots of people dehumanise others, find ways to irradiate empathy and remorse from their day jobs so they can preform their jobs better.

When you gaze into the eyes of another person you can only see as far as his closed door. So take it as an opportunity to knock on that door. If he doesn't want to open the door you bow to him and you say, That's fine. When you're ready.

When you say Jonah seems broken, what do you mean? Justine said. I think he's broken and that people mistake it for shamelessness, I said. People really were very keen to imagine Jonah as shameless, as lacking in that quality, like he was something not quite human that had adopted human form. I suppose it's no surprise that we feel the need to dehumanize the people we hurt—before, during, or after the hurting occurs.

I feel your scorn, and I accept it.

Hearing] was distinct from listening, which could only be achieved when hearing was combined with giving a shit.

The trouble with wars is that they all look alike to people who aren't involved. Only the skin color of the dead is different.

Some people are more forgiving when they understand a situation, while others become even more furious once they see the whole picture.

Quelli che ci amano possono essere divisi in due categorie: chi ci capisce e chi ci perdona i nostri peggiori peccati. Raramente riusciamo a trovare una persona capace di entrambe le cose.

Save some pity for the Misfit, fighting on with bursting heart; Not a trace of common sense, his is no common flight. Save, save him some pity. But save the greater part For him that sees no glimmer of the Misfit's guiding light.

A lot of people don't realize depression is an illness. I don't wish it on anyone, but if they would know how it feels, I swear they would think twice before they just shrug it.

He wanted this someone to see how much he hurt.

Deploring other people--their lack of perfection--had always been our sport.

Don't talk to me about hatred if you haven't been married. Only love, only long empathy and identification and compassion, can root another person in your heart so deeply that there's no escaping your hatred of her, not ever; especially not when the thing you hate most about her is her capacity to be hurt by you. The love persists and the hatred with it.

It was clear to everyone that day, and in the months that followed, that Patty's greatest warming influence was on Walter himself. Now, instead of speeding by his neighbors in his angry Prius, he stopped to lower his window and say hello. On weekends, he brought Patty over to the patch of clear ice that the neighborhood kids maintained for hockey and instructed her in skating, which, in a remarkably short time, she became rather good at.

I said it was OK, I said I loved her, I said not to worry about me. Her breathing became slower and more labored, and then just past noon, it stopped altogether. I laid my cheek on her chest and held her for a long time, not thinking anything, just being an animal that had lost its mother.

He cried for a long time. I stroked his head and held him close. If he'd been a woman, I would have kissed his hair. But strict limits to intimacy are straight man's burden.

To love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self.

he felt unbearably sorry for himself. It was strange that self-pity wasn't on the list of deadly sins; none was deadlier.

She seemed more pitiable than murderable.

Not only had Mr. Butcavage's questions been reasonable, he also had an unfortunate name and no friends in his neighborhood. He was probably a lonely person like her mother, and Pip felt helplessly compassionate toward anyone who reminded her of her mother.

you shouldn't try to save a drowning woman unless you were ready to drown yourself

Un inconvenient del correu electrònic és que només el pots esborrar una vegada: no pots arrugar-lo, rebotre'l contra el terra, trepitjar-lo, fer-ne mil bocins i cremar-lo. Hi podia haver alguna cosa més cruel, per part d'algú que t'acabava de rebutjar, que una paciència compassiva?