Quotes About Compassion

We do our sulking lovers the greatest possible favor when we are able to regard their tantrums as we would those of an infant. We are so alive to the idea that it's patronizing to be thought of as younger than we are; we forget that it is also, at times, the greatest privilege for someone to look beyond our adult self in order to engage with—and forgive—the disappointed, furious, inarticulate child within.

it seems impossible to talk of love and letting live, and if we are left to live, we are not usually loved.

No one properly gets, or can fully sympathize with, anyone else.

If we were entirely sane, if madness did not have a serious grip on one side of us, other people's tragedies would hold a great deal less interest for us.

The business of repatriating emotions emerges as one of the most delicate and necessary tasks of love. To accept the risks of transference is to prioritize sympathy and understanding over irritation and judgment. Two people can come to see that sudden bursts of anxiety or hostility may not always be directly caused by them, and so should not always be met with fury or wounded pride. Bristling and condemnation can give way to compassion. By

There may be no better way to clear the diary of engagements than to wonder who among our acquaintances would make the trip to the hospital bed.

To define a mission for art, then, one of its tasks is to teach us to be good lovers: lovers of rivers and lovers of skies, lovers of motorways and lovers of stones (58). And – very importantly – somewhere along the way, lovers of people.

He entertains a confused wish to help her, without, however, understanding that help can be a challenging gift to deliver to those who are most in need of it.

The lesson? To respond to the unexpected and hurtful behavior of others with something more than a wipe of the glasses, to see it as a chance to expand our understanding, even if, as Proust warns is, 'when we discover the true lives of other people, the real world beneath the world of appearance, we get as many surprises as on visiting a house of plain exterior which is full of hidden treasures, torture-chambers or skeletons.

We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.

We are ready for relationships not when we have encountered perfection, but when we have grown willing to give flaws the charitable interpretations they deserve. This is because the success or failure of a relationship doesn't hinge on whether the other is deeply flawed – they are. What matters is how we interpret their failings; how we understand the reasons why they have previously been and will again in the future be very difficult to be with.

There is no such thing as a hurt that is too small to matter when emotional closeness is at stake.

We must live with our enemies as if they might one day become our friends, and live with our friends as if they might some time or other become our enemies'.

How kind we would be if we managed to import even a little of this instinct into adult relationships—if here, too, we could look past the grumpiness and viciousness and recognize the fear, confusion, and exhaustion which almost invariably underlie them. This is what it would mean to gaze upon the human race with love.

PuÈ›ini oameni sunt pur È™i simplu nesuferiÈ›i; cei care r?nesc sunt la rândul lor r?niÈ›i. În aceste condiÈ›ii, reacÈ›ia cuvenit? nu e niciodat? cinismul sau agresiunea, ci, în rarele momente când suntem în stare de ea, iubirea.

Being political doesn't only or principally mean caring what party wins the next election; to be political is to care about the happiness of strangers.

In light of all he understands about himself and the course of love, he can see that the kindest thing he can do to someone he truly likes is to get out of the way fast.

one cannot blame a lover for loving or not loving, for it is a matter beyond their choice and hence responsibility – though what makes rejection in love harder to bear than donkeys who can never sing is that one did once see the lover loving.

Nici el, nici ea nu trebuie s? fie perfecÈ›i, e nevoie doar s?-È™i dea din când în când câte-un semn care s? arate c? È™tiu c? e greu de tr?it cu ei.

When does a job feel meaningful? Whenever it allows us to generate delight or reduce suffering in others.

We had learnt to feel respect for circuit boards and pity and guilt towards glaciers.

Though it is a sign of some maturity to know how to love and live alongside someone, it may be a sign of even greater maturity to recognise that this is something one isn't in the end psychologically really capable of – as a good portion of us simply aren't. Retiring oneself voluntarily, in order to save others (and oneself) from the consequences of one's inner emotional turmoil may be the true sign of a great and kindly soul.

We seem unwilling to allow for the possibility that the glory of our species may lie not only in the launching of satellites, the founding of companies, and the manufacturing of miraculously thin semiconductors but also in an ability—even if it is widely distributed among billions—to spoon yogurt into small mouths, find missing socks, clean toilets, deal with tantrums, and wipe congealed things off tables.

love is a skill rather than an enthusiasm.