Quotes About Connection

The Sufis, the Sunni mystics with whom the Ismailis felt great affinity, had an axiom: "He who knows himself, knows his Lord.

One of the reasons why religion seems irrelevant today is that many of us no longer have the sense that we are surrounded by the unseen.

Listen to the reed, how it tells a tale, complaining of separateness. Ever since I was parted from the reed-bed, my lament has caused men and women to moan. I want a bosom torn by severance, that I may unfold [to such a person] the power of love-desire: everyone who is left far from his source wishes back the time when he was united to it.51

eminent monotheists in all three faiths—that instead of waiting for God to descend from on high, I should deliberately create a sense of him for myself.

instead of waiting for God to descend from on high, I should deliberately create a sense of him for myself.

it is important to assume that the speaker shares the same human nature as yourself and that, even though your belief systems may differ, you both have the same idea of what constitutes truth.

Charity," Davidson continues, "is forced on us, whether we like it or not; if we want to understand others, we must count them right in most matters."13

Many found the very idea hilarious. "Hi, Karen—how's God?" they would ask, as though inquiring about a mutual acquaintance.

With this new empathetic understanding of the context, we will find that we can imagine ourselves, in similar circumstances, feeling the same.

A truly compassionate person touches a chord in us that resonates with some of our deepest yearnings. People flock to such individuals, because they seem to offer a haven of peace in a violent, angry world. This is the ideal to which we aspire, and it is not beyond our capacity. But even if we achieve only a fraction of this enlightenment and leave the world marginally better because we have lived in it, our lives will have been worthwhile.

One of the many great sources of happiness is to get a glimpse, here and there, of a new aspect of the incredible world we live in and of our incredible role in it."17

we rarely convey our thoughts adequately to others and this makes our relationships with other people problematic.

In other words, when making an effort to understand something strange and alien to you, it is important to assume that the speaker share the same human nature as yourself and that, even though your belief systems may differ, you both have the same idea of what constitutes truth.

But Christina never forgot that "when I was a child, I needed only one person to understand my suffering and pain.… One is very important."5

what Tibetan Buddhists call "the inability to bear the sight of another's sorrow," so that we feel it almost as intensely as we feel our own. We

cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

compassion" derives from the Latin patiri and the Greek pathein, meaning "to suffer, undergo, or experience." So "compassion" means "to endure [something] with another person," to put ourselves in somebody else's shoes

The Kikuyu, when left to themselves, do not bury their dead, but leave them above ground for the hyenas and vultures to deal with. The custom had always appealed to me, I thought that it would be pleasant thing to be laid out to the sun and the stars, and to be so promptly, neatly, and openly picked and cleansed; to be made one with Nature and become a common component of a landscape.

If I know a song of Africa,—I thought,—of the Giraffe, and the African new moon lying on her back, of the ploughs in the fields, and the sweaty faces of the coffee-pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Would the air over the plain quiver with a colour that I had had on, or the children invent a game in which my name was, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or would the eagles of Ngong look out for me? I

If they were to go away from their land, they must have people round them who had known it, and so could testify to their identity.

Listening is more than just being quiet for a moment. It's not just the pause we were talking about earlier. Listening includes paying attention to the whole person, and especially their emotions.

Listening requires attending to the other person's heart.

When showering life-giving words on another human, don't just pick the people you know well. Notice the one who least expects to be noticed.

The mouth speaks what the heart has stored.