Quotes About Compassion

I have held the hands of countless dying people from all sorts of backgrounds, and I do not think I have met a single person who didn't share the exact same aspirations at the end of life: to make amends for mistakes, to be close to loved ones, to tell one's story to someone who will listen, and to die free of pain.

The arc of our evolutionary history is long. But it bends towards goodness

the wearing of masks reflects altruism,

Vi blir faktiskt mer ledsna när våra familjemedlemmar är ledsna än om främmande människor är ledsna.

One night he had shared his quarters with a wounded drummer boy, protecting the child from cold.

I looked below and saw my people there, and all were well and happy except one, and he was lying like the dead -- and that one was myself.

when you see someone injured, the primitive pain centers in your own brain activate almost instantaneously—the more sophisticated mental process of empathizing with psychological suffering unfolds much more slowly.

It's not only deep thinking that requires a calm, attentive mind. It's also empathy and compassion.

One of the great failings of the American education system, in our view, is that young people can graduate from university without any understanding of poverty at home or abroad. Study-abroad

America's schools rarely convey much understanding of the 2.7 billion people (40 percent of the world's population) who today live on less than $2 a day.

The best role for Americans who want to help Muslim women isn't holding the microphone at the front of the rally but writing the checks and carrying the bags in the back.

Americans used to extol good-hearted Robin Hood, taking from the rich to give to the poor, and now we've stepped into the shoes of the Sheriff of Nottingham. When as a society we shrug at 30 million children living in low-income families in America, slashing their benefits while urging them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, we need to look in the mirror and have a good talk with ourselves.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. —FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, Second Inaugural Address, January 20, 1937

It is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself up by his bootstraps. —DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

America is going to hell if we don't use her vast resources to end poverty and make it possible for all of God's children to have the basic necessities of life. —MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

When you are called to a sick man, be sure you know what the matter is — if you do not know, nature can do a great deal better than you can guess.

They looked at each other and some refraction of the pain in Tom's heart must have shown in his eyes. Frank said, 'In pretty deep, huh?' 'About as deep as it gets.

At Christmas, 'It's a Wonderful Life' makes me cry in exactly the same places every time, even though I know it's coming.

The work done, she lowered him back into place with what, in his final thought, seemed great gentleness. And then he was done.

In a nutshell, loving someone is about giving, not receiving.

And when I came in with tears in my eyes, you always knew whether I needed you to hold me or just let me be. I don't know how you knew, but you did, and you made it easier for me.

I finally understood what true love meant...love meant that you care for another person's happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be.

You have to suffer in order to be a human being who can help people understand suffering.

It's madness really that society expects a newly bereaved person to jump through so many hoops.