Quotes about Compassion

No one but an aviator has a right to look down on others.

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.

Love never reasons, but profusely gives; it gives like a thoughtless prodigal its all, and then trembles least it has done to little.

The wretch who digs the mine for bread, or ploughs, that others may be fed, feels less fatigued than that decreed to him who cannot think or read.

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart.…forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.

If I could see the abolition of slavery... I would sing my nunc dimittis with joy.

To live with another within the compass of one heart: I must move to the side, must make myself small, so that the other has space and does not feel crowded.

We may not ever understand why we suffer or be able to control the forces that cause our suffering, but we can have a lot to say about what suffering does to us, and what sort of people we become because of it. Pain makes some people bitter and envious. It makes others sensitive and compassionate. It is the result, not the cause, of pain that makes some experiences of pain meaningful and others empty and destructive.

The Bible, after all, repeatedly speaks of God as the special protector of the poor, the widow, and the orphan, without raising the question of how it happened that they became poor, widowed, or orphaned in the first place.

If we want to be able to pick up the pieces of our lives and go on living, we have to get over the irrational feeling that every misfortune is our fault, the direct result of our mistakes or misbehavior. We are really not that powerful. Not everything that happens in the world is our doin

Perhaps that is the only cure for jealousy, to realize that the people we resent and envy for having what we lack, probably have wounds and scars of their own. They may even be envying us.

I believe strongly that one of the primary goals of religion is to teach people to like themselves and feel good about themselves. All my experience has taught me that people who feel good about themselves will be more generous, more forgiving of others, less defensive about their mistakes, more assessable to change, and better able to cope with misfortune and adversity.