Her own misery filled her heart—there was no room in it for other people's sorrow.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined to strengthen each other, to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories

So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain.

We are children of a large family, and must learn, as such children do, not to expect that our little hurts will be made much of - to be content with little nurture and caressing, and help each other the more.

Scenes which make vital changes in our neighbors' lot are but the background of our own, yet, like a particular aspect of the fields and trees, they become associated for us with the epochs of our own history, and make a part of that unity which lies in the selection of our keenest consciousness.

There is no escaping the fact that want of sympathy condemns us to a corresponding stupidity.

If we had lost our own chief good, other people's good would remain, and that is worth trying for.

I believe that people are almost always better than their neighbors think they are," said Dorothea.

No, dear, no, said Dorothea, stroking her sister's cheek. Souls have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another.

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?

Here's a fender that if you had the misfortune to hang yourselves would cut you down in no time—with astonishing celerity ... —an appropriate thing for a spare bedroom where there was a four-poster and a guest a little out of his mind.

What do we live for, if not to make the world less difficult for each other?