Quotes about Compassion

When I say empathic listening, I mean listening with intent to understand. I mean seeking first to understand, to really understand. It's an entirely different paradigm. Empathic (from empathy) listening gets inside another person's frame of reference. You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.

Probably the most important deposit you could make would be just to listen, without judging or preaching or reading your own autobiography into what he says. Just listen and seek to understand. Let him feel your concern for him, your acceptance of him as a person.

Life is a mission and not a career," and that we could find true happiness by serving others.

I'm sure there are people who, even suddenly understanding the true situation, would have felt no more than a twinge of regret or vague guilt as they continued to sit in embarrassed silence beside the grieving, confused man. On the other hand, I am equally certain there are people who would have been far more sensitive in the first place, who may have recognized that a deeper problem existed and reached out to understand and help before I did.

Not a day goes by that we can't at least serve one other human being by making deposits of unconditional love.

newborn into the world. If you want to study love, study those who sacrifice for others, even for people who offend or do not love in return.

In the great literature of all progressive societies, love is a verb.

Seek first to understand. Before the problems come up, before you try to evaluate and prescribe, before you try to present your own ideas—seek to understand.

Leo Roskin taught, "It is the weak who are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.

The Golden Rule says to "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." While on the surface that could mean to do for them what you would like to have done for you, I think the more essential meaning is to understand them deeply as individuals, the way you would want to be understood, and then to treat them in terms of that understanding. As one successful parent said about raising children, "Treat them all the same by treating them differently.

Ironically, you'll find that as you care less about what others think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves and their worlds, including their relationship with you.

To deal only with the superficial trivia without seeing deeper, more tender issues is to trample on the sacred ground of another's heart.