compassion Quotes

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!”

“Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion.”

“Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It’s not something we have or don’t have -- it’s something we choose to practice.”

“If empathy is the skill or ability to tap into our own experiences in order to connect with an experience someone is relating to us, compassion is the willingness to be open to this process.”

“Courage gives us a voice and compassion gives us an ear. Without both, there is no opportunity for empathy and connection.”

“What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!” “Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”

Since there is always more misery in the depths than compassion in the heights, everything was given, so to speak, before it was received

There are men who dig for gold; he dug for compassion. Poverty was his goldmine; and the universality of suffering a reason for the universality of charity.

“And understanding begets empathy and compassion, even for the meanest beggar . . . ”

“There is beauty in compassion, but one must learn wisdom too.”

“My every impulse bends to what is right. Not iron, trust me, the heart with my breast. I am all compassion.”

Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.

“Could we just settle down and have some compassion and respect for ourselves? Could we stop trying to escape from being alone with ourselves? What about practicing not jumping and grabbing when we begin to panic? Relaxing with loneliness is a worthy occupation.″

“Without suffering, there’d be no compassion.”

″‘And what exactly were you trying to accomplish?’ Haymitch asks in a very measured voice. ‘I’m not sure. I just wanted to hold them accountable, if only for a moment,’ says Peeta. ‘For killing that little girl.‘”

“And Edmund for the first time in this story felt sorry for someone besides himself. It seemed so pitiful to think of those little stone figures sitting there all the silent days and all the dark nights, year after year, till the moss grew on them and at last even their faces crumbled away.”

“We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness, even if our brokenness is not equivalent […] Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, foreswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity.”

“I ought to have thought of the people who had no armour.”

“When she was walking me to the door, the librarian stopped at her desk and said, ‘Now I know that knowledge is a food, but I couldn’t help noticing you never went to eat. You must be very hungry.’ She handed me a paper bag and gave me another smile. ”

“I said, ‘I’d trade you in a minute. The worst thing that’s going to happen to you is that they’re going to make you play house a lot … I tickled Jerry under his chin and said, “Ga-ga, goo-goo, baby-waby.’ Jerry couldn’t help but smile. I said, ‘You’re going to be great.’ Jerry looked like he wasn’t so scared anymore so I went over to my bed and started getting ready.”

“For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”

“But compassion is a deeper thing that waits beyond the tension of choosing sides. Compassion, in practice, does not require us to give up the truth of what we feel or the truth of our reality. Nor does it allow us to minimize the humanity of those who hurt us. Rather, we are asked to know ourselves enough that we can stay open to the truth of others, even when their truth or their inability to live up to their truth has hurt us.”

“There will be no injustice in compelling our philosophers to have a care and providence of others.”

“Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily’s father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying.”

“There are better ways to teach a child compassion.”

“Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes, they mean it. They’re compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment.”

“I was sick of it. Sick of hearing the phrase German Only. Could we really turn our backs on innocent homeless children? They were victims, not soldiers.”

“It could have been so easy. I could have walked across the ice myself, without the burden of the group. They could have tried to save the blind girl. Maybe they all would have drowned in the process. That would have been so much easier. And so much harder.”

“It is my greatest hope that the pages in this jar stir your deepest well of human compassion. I hope they prompt you to do something, to tell someone. Only then can we ensure that this kind of evil is never allowed to repeat itself.”

“Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain’t through learning – because that ain’t the time at all. It’s when he’s at his lowest and can’t believe in hisself ‘cause the world done whipped him so! When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is.”

“Reader, it is not to awaken sympathy for myself that I am telling you truthfully what I suffered in slavery. I do it to kindle a flame of compassion in your hearts for my sisters who are still in bondage, suffering as I once suffered.”

“Some people build fences to keep people out and other people build fences to keep people in. Rose wants to hold on to you all. She loves you.”

“Somehow, out of the watch shop that never made money, he fed and dressed eleven more children after his own four were grown.”

“And then, incredibly, Betsie began to pray for the Germans up there in the planes, caught in the fist of the giant evil loose in Germany.”

“You say we could lose our lives for this child? I would consider that the greatest honor that could come to my family.”

“The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside, I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile, Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak, And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him, And brought water and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and bruis’d feet, And gave him a room that enter’d from my own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes, And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness, And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles; He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass’d north, I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean’d in the corner.”

“To love the enemy and to find some spaciousness for the victimizer, as well as the victim, resembles more the expansive compassion of God.”

“Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.”

“Did you see his face? He looked terrible…”

“You smart-aleck! You have no more right to spit on his religion than you have a right to spit on my religion! Or my lack of it!”

“I can’t imagine the world without Matthew Harrison Brady.”

“Courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy lift us above the simple beasts and define humanity.”

“I fear the other girls in the circle will make a mockery of me when I testify,” Mary confided. She sat in the chair and broke into weeping. I went to put my arm around her. She gripped my hand. […] Johnathan and I stayed with Mary in that room above the tavern. We quieted her and promised we would be in court.

“Who can save a child from a burning house without taking the risk of being hurt by the flames?”

“When you see a hurt, address it. [...] Compassion matters to God. This is the time for service, not self-centeredness.”

“She was inside this silence and she was safe. ”

“Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih shantih shantih.”

“Nothing can be more cruel than the tenderness that consigns another to his sin. Nothing can be more compassionate the the severe rebuke that calls a brother back from the path of sin.”

“In any case, frequent punishments are a sign of weakness or slackness in the government. There is no man so bad that he cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to death, even as an example, if he can be left to live without danger to society.”

″ A democracy with this effort by its people must and can face its problems, that it must show patience, restraint, compassion, as well as wisdom and strength and courage, in the struggle for solutions which are very rarely easy to find.”

“While it is true there are people who don’t want us here, there are others who welcome us, and are happy to share their country with us.”

“Empathy combined with stronger emotions leads to compassion.”

“The root of suffering is attachment.”

“Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little.”

Sutra 2.31: ete jâti-desa-kâla-samayânavacchinnâh sârva-bhaumâ mahâvratam Translation: These codes of self-regulation become a powerful standard to live by when they can be practiced unconditionally.

“The fundamental human experience is that of compassion.”

“Mindfulness not only makes it possible to survey our internal landscape with compassion and curiosity but can also actively steer us in the right direction for self-care.”

“I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.”

“During His earthly ministry, Jesus was always moved with compassion and healed all them that had need of healing, and He is our faithful and merciful high priest today.”

“Dear God, Thank you for this new day, its beauty and its light. Thank You for my chance to begin again. Free me from the limitations of yesterday. Today may I be reborn. May I become more fully a reflection of Your radiance. Give me strength and compassion and courage and wisdom. Show me the light in myself and others. May I recognize the good that is available everywhere.”

“Kaseem, Parvana replied, giving him her boy-name. She didn’t think any more about whether to trust someone with the truth about herself. The truth could get her arrested, or killed. It was easier and safer not to trust anyone.”

“You can have compassion without forgiving. There are many ways to move on, and pretending to feel a certain way isn’t one of them.”

“Above all, I didn’t want to fall into the trap that Buddhists call idiot compassion - an apt phrase, given John’s worldview. In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed.”

“The tramp looked at the battered wrecks around him in the cold, clear sunlight. He looked down at himself in his ragged clothes. Then he sat down in the car he had slept in, and reached into his pocket for a little screwdriver. While the dog watched quietly, he took the mouse and his child apart to see if he could make them dance again.”

“Listening with my Heart reminds us of the other golden rule-- to treat ourselves with the same understanding and compassion we give to others.”

“Don’t keep coughing so, Kitty, for heaven’s sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.”

“God knows we done all we could, as poor as we are—we wouldn’t see him want anything while he was in it.”

“What good would she be to us?” “We might be some good to her,” said Matthew suddenly and unexpectedly.

Marilla looked at Anne and softened at sight of the child’s pale face with its look of mute misery—the misery of a helpless little creature who finds itself once more caught in the trap from which it had escaped. Marilla felt an uncomfortable conviction that, if she denied the appeal of that look, it would haunt her to her dying day.

“Friend John, I pity your poor bleeding heart; and I love you the more because it does so bleed.

“I reckon she ought to be punished a little. But don’t be too hard on her, Marilla. Recollect she hasn’t ever had anyone to teach her right.”

“Some poor creeter came a-beggin’, and your ma went straight off to see what was needed. There never was such a woman for givin’ away vittles and drink, clothes and firin’,” replied Hannah, who had lived with the family since Meg was born, and was considered by them all more as a friend than a servant.

“I wish I could send my bunch to Father. I’m afraid he isn’t having such a merry Christmas as we are.”

If you will believe me, she went and knocked at the study door before she gave herself time to think, and when a gruff voice called out, “come in!” she did go in, right up to Mr. Laurence, who looked quite taken aback, and held out her hand, saying, with only a small quaver in her voice, “I came to thank you, sir, for...” But she didn’t finish, for he looked so friendly that she forgot her speech and, only remembering that he had lost the little girl he loved, she put both arms round his neck and kissed him.

An hour passed. Amy did not come, Meg went to her room to try on a new dress, Jo was absorbed in her story, and Hannah was sound asleep before the kitchen fire, when Beth quietly put on her hood, filled her basket with odds and ends for the poor children, and went out into the chilly air with a heavy head and a grieved look in her patient eyes.

He did not say to himself, “It is none of my business. I’ve no right to say anything,” as many people would have done. He only remembered that she was young and poor, a girl far away from mother’s love and father’s care, and he was moved to help her with an impulse as quick and natural as that which would prompt him to put out his hand to save a baby from a puddle.

Up he got, groped his way to the piano, laid a kind hand on either of the broad shoulders, and said, as gently as a woman, “I know, my boy, I know.”

Don’t laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragic romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns, and many silent sacrifices of youth, health, ambition, love itself, make the faded faces beautiful in God’s sight.

“I could scarcely walk when my mother, who was called Vasiliki, which means royal,” said the young girl, tossing her head proudly, “took me by the hand, and after putting in our purse all the money we possessed, we went out, both covered with veils, to solicit alms for the prisoners, saying, ‘He who giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.’

“Poor countess,” said Maximilian, “I pity her very much; she is so noble a woman!”

“I wish it was only me that got put out, Pip; I wish there warn’t no Tickler for you, old chap; I wish I could take it all on myself; but this is the up-and-down-and-straight on it, Pip, and I hope you’ll overlook shortcomings.”

“If you knew all my story,” she pleaded, “you would have some compassion for me and a better understanding of me.”

In order to test his taste, she brought him a whole selection of things, all spread out on an old newspaper. There were old, half-rotten vegetables; bones from the evening meal, covered in white sauce that had gone hard; a few raisins and almonds; some cheese that Gregor had declared inedible two days before; a dry roll and some bread spread with butter and salt. As well as all that she had poured some water into the dish, which had probably been permanently set aside for Gregor’s use, and placed it beside them. Then, out of consideration for Gregor’s feelings, as she knew that he would not eat in front of her, she hurried out again and even turned the key in the lock so that Gregor would know he could make things as comfortable for himself as he liked.

“Stand away a little, please; can’t you see the comrade is worn out?”

Levin felt that, in spite of all the ugliness of his life, his brother Nikolay, in his soul, in the very depths of his soul, was no more in the wrong than the people who despised him. He was not to blame for having been born with his unbridled temperament and his somehow limited intelligence. But he had always wanted to be good.

“I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity,”

“He had a sensitive and tender heart and would do anything for a friend. His nature was entirely free from selfishness.”

“If you consent, neither you nor any other human being shall ever see us again; I will go to the vast wilds of South America. My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment. My companion will be of the same nature as myself and will be content with the same fare. We shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun will shine on us as on man and will ripen our food. The picture I present to you is peaceful and human, and you must feel that you could deny it only in the wantonness of power and cruelty. Pitiless as you have been towards me, I now see compassion in your eyes; let me seize the favourable moment and persuade you to promise what I so ardently desire.”