Quotes About Compassion

Love is better than hate Love is better than hate Love is better than hate & stronger than hell for we took our shoes off as we fell.

Being generous or doing things for others actually makes me feel good so I don't do it because I hope karma will come round and get me and I'll benefit from it.

Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone's feelings

I didn't cause it. I can't control it. I can't cure it.

Why does it help to read others' stories? It is not only that misery loves company, because (I learned) misery is too self-absorbed to want much company. Others' experiences did help with my emotional struggle...

Through Nic's drug addiction, I have learned that parents can bear almost anything....I shock myself with my ability to rationalize and tolerate things once unthinkable. The rationalizations escalate....It's only marijuana. He gets high only on weekends. At least he's not using hard drugs....

Some people may opt out. Their child turns out to be whatever it is that they find impossible to face—for some, the wrong religion; for some, the wrong sexuality; for some, a drug addict. They close the door. Click. Like in mafia movies: "I have no son. He is dead to me." I have a son and he will never be dead to me.

At my worst, I even resented Nic because an addict, at least when high, has a momentary respite from his suffering. There is no similar relief for parents or children or husbands or wives or others who love them.

Don't confront me with my failures. I have not forgotten them.

An alcoholic will steal your wallet and lie about it. A drug addict will steal your wallet and then help you look for it." Part of me is convinced that he actually believes that he will find it for you.

I know there is no point in haranguing him because he will just shut down, but I want to cover every angle.

You didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it.

We deny the severity of our loved one's problem, not because we are naive, but because we can't know.

If Nic were not ill he would not lie. If Nic were not ill he would not steal. If Nic were not ill he would not terrorize his family. He would not forsake his friends, his mother, Karen, Jasper, and Daisy, and he would not forsake me. He would not. He has a disease, but addiction is the most baffling of all diseases, unique in the blame, shame, and humiliation that accompany it.

At my worst, I even resented Nic because an addict, at least when high, has a momentary respite from his suffering. There is no similar relief for parents or children or husbands or wives or others who love them. Nic

Thomas Lynch showed me that it is possible to love a child who is lost, possibly forever.

Love cannot exist for long without the dimension of justice.

I pray even as the news in the papers makes my prayer seem insignificant in scale and wholly selfish. There is a devastating hurricane and flooding and suicide bombers and crashes and tsunamis and terrorism and cancer and war—endless and brutal war—disease and famine and earthquakes and everywhere there is addiction, and today the heavens must be overwhelmed with the noise of all the prayers. Here is one more. Please God heal Nic. Please God heal Nic. The

Parents are suckers.

Even as all the experts kindly tell the parents of addicts, "You didn't cause it," I have not let myself off the hook. I often feel as if I completely failed my son. In admitting this, I am not looking for sympathy or absolution, but instead stating a truth that will be recognized by most parents who have been through this.

I well up with tears for it. For all of it. On the one hand: the uncertain future. The possibility of another hemorrhage. The chance that my children will be killed in a car accident. The chance that Nic will relapse. A million other catastrophes. On the other: compassion and love. For my parents and family. For my friends. For Karen. For my children. I may feel more fragile and vulnerable, but I experience more consciousness.

worse shape than you and helping the poor person. It's about a relationship between equals. You understand their suffering. You're completely in their shoes. It comes from softening our hearts, opening up to our own and others' pain. To me, that's enlightenment.

It seems most of you believe that people are inherently good and to be trusted, that strangers are friends and friends brethren.

A little anger is a good thing if it isn't on your own behalf, if it's for others deserving of your anger, your empathy.