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Quotes About Compassion

The poor are always prophetic. As true prophets always point out, they reveal God's design. That is why we should take time to listen to them. And that means staying near them, because they speak quietly and infrequently; they are afraid to speak out, they lack confidence in themselves because they have been broken and oppressed. But if we listen to them, they will bring us back to the essential.
~ Jean Vanier
Individualistic material progress and the desire to gain prestige by coming out on top have taken over from the sense of fellowship, compassion and community. Now people live more or less on their own in a small house, jealously guarding their goods and planning to acquire more, with a notice on the gate that says, 'Beware of the Dog.
~ Jean Vanier
Every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. (23-24)
~ Jean Vanier
At the heart of the celebration, there are the poor. If [they] are excluded, it is not longer a celebration. [...] A celebration must always be a festival of the poor.
~ Jean Vanier
I believe every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. Violence should not be answered just by greater violence but by real understanding. We must ask: 'Where is the violence coming from? What is its meaning?
~ Jean Vanier
Sometimes it is easier to hear the cries of poor people who are far away than it is to hear the cries of our brothers and sisters in our own community. There is nothing very splendid in responding to the cry of the person who is with us day after day and who gets on our nerves. Perhaps too we can only respond to the cries of others when we have recognized and accepted the cry of our own pain.
~ Jean Vanier
We human beings are all fundamentally the same. We all belong to a common, broken humanity. We all have wounded, vulnerable hearts. Each one of us needs to feel appreciated and understood; we all need help.
~ Jean Vanier
This evolution towards a real responsibility for others is sometimes blocked by fear. It is easier to stay on the level of a pleasant way of life in which we keep our freedom and our distance. But that means that we stop growing and shut ourselves up in our own small concerns and pleasures.
~ Jean Vanier
Our humanity is so beautiful, but it needs to be transformed
~ Jean Vanier
Community as caring . . . So many people enter groups in order to develop a certain form of spirituality or to acquire knowledge about the things of God and of humanity. But that is not community; it is a school. It becomes community only when people start truly caring for each other and for each other's growth.
~ Jean Vanier
That is the fundamental question; how to trust that she has a heart and that she can, little by little, receive love, be transformed by love, and then give love.
~ Jean Vanier
The weak and the poor are for us a source of unity. Jesus came into the world to change and transform society from a "pyramid" in which the strong and clever dominate at the top, into a "body", where each member of society has a place, is respected and is important.
~ Jean Vanier
Jesus does not impose or force anything on anyone. He gently invites each one of us to move forward. He says "come," come and see, come and live an experience of love, healing and a new inner freedom.
~ Jean Vanier
The language of elitism smells bad! It is not healthy to believe that we are the only ones to have captured truth and even less healthy to condemn others.
~ Jean Vanier
The next chapter is about belonging: the essential need we have to be and to share with others. The human heart is a place of freedom. We can be obliged to follow the law but not to love, because "true love casts out fear." Our society grows in justice and peace as we allow energies of love and concern for all to rise up in ourselves.
~ Jean Vanier
Écouter, c'est d'abord une attitude. C'est chercher à comprendre l'autre avec ses souffrances, ses désirs et son espérance, sans le juger ni le condamner. Écouter, c'est mettre l'autre en valeur pour lui donner vie et l'aider à avoir confiance en lui...Quand je suis trop centré sur mes projets, quand j'ai besoin de me prouver, j'ai davantage du mal à écouter
~ Jean Vanier
Growth will come as we come closer to people who are different from us and as we learn to welcome and listen even to those who trigger off our pain.
~ Jean Vanier
Do not worry, Mummy. Jesus loves me as I am." I imagine that the little boy thought: Jesus loves me as I am. I do not have to be different from what I am. I do not have to be what my uncle wants me to be. I do not have to be what mummy would have wanted me to be. I do not even have to be what I would have liked to be. Jesus does not care about my disability.
~ Jean Vanier
Caring is the essence of nursing.
~ Jean Watson
We had a bishop this morning and what do you think he said? "The most beneficent promise made us in the Bible is this,'The poor ye have always with you.' They were put here in order to keep us charitable." The poor, please observe, being a sort of useful domestic animal. If I hadn't grown into such a perfect lady, I should have gone up after service and told him what I thought.
~ Jean Webster
Kualitas paling penting yang perlu dimiliki oleh seseorang adalah imajinasi. Imajinasi membuat orang mampu menempatkan diri mereka di tempat orang lain. Imajinasi membuat mereka menjadi orang yang baik dan bisa bersimpati serta penuh pengertian.
~ Jean Webster
You know, Daddy, I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It make them kind and sympathetic and understanding. It ought to be cultivated in children.
~ Jean Webster
the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding.
~ Jean Webster
If one suffers we all suffer. Togetherness is strength. Courage.
~ Jean-Bertrand Aristide