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Quotes about Compassion

Someone despises me. That's their problem. Mine: not to do or say anything despicable. Someone hates me. Their problem. Mine: to be patient and cheerful with everyone, including them. Ready to show them their mistake. Not spitefully, or to show off my own self-control, but in an honest, upright way.
— Marcus Aurelius
How cruel—to forbid people to want what they think is good for them. And yet that's just what you won't let them do when you get angry at their misbehavior. They're drawn toward what they think is good for them. —But it's not good for them. Then show them that. Prove it to them. Instead of losing your temper.
— Marcus Aurelius
All men are made one for another: either then teach them better, or bear with them.
— Marcus Aurelius
When faced with people's bad behavior, turn around and ask when you have acted like that. When you saw money as a good, or pleasure, or social position. Your anger will subside as soon as you recognize that they acted under compulsion (what else could they do?)
— Marcus Aurelius
The best kind of revenge is, not to become like unto them.
— Marcus Aurelius
Not to shrug off a friend's resentment—even unjustified resentment—but try to put things right.
— Marcus Aurelius
It is peculiar to man to love even those who do wrong. And this happens, if when they do wrong it occurs to thee that they are kinsmen, and that they do wrong through ignorance and unintentionally, and that soon both of you will die; and above all, that the wrong-doer has done thee no harm, for he has not made thy ruling faculty worse than it was before.
— Marcus Aurelius
We don't practise generosity in order to secure gratitude, nor do we invest our gifts in the hope of a favourable return. Rather, it is nature that inclines us towards generosity. Just so, we don't seek friendship with an expectation of gain, but regard the feeling of love as its own reward.
— Cicero
I could see how you could do extreme things for the person you loved. Adam One said that when you loved a person, that love might not always get returned the way you wanted, but it was a good thing anyway because love went out all around you like an energy wave, and a creature you didn't know would be helped by it.
— Margaret Atwood
We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young.
— Margaret Atwood
I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely.
— Margaret Atwood
Nobody's heart is perfect.
— Margaret Atwood