quotations about compassion
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
A Testament of Hope
What I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion.
CHRIS ABANI
"Chris Abani muses on humanity", dotSUB, Nov. 13, 2008
Compassion is the sense of our own misfortunes in those of another.
L. M. STRETCH
The Beauties of History
Developing our inner compassion is like becoming our own doctors and healers.
PAUL GILBERT & CHODEN
Mindful Compassion
But whoever has the material possessions of this world and sees his brother in need and yet refuses to show him compassion, in what way does the love of God remain in him?
JOHN THE EVANGELIST
1 John 3:17
Love and justice are like water and fire -- although both are necessary, they go together with difficulty. Compassion and wisdom are like heat and light -- although different, they work together in complementarity.
MASAO ABE
Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue
True compassion is not forged at a distance from pain but in its fires.
CHRISTINA FELDMAN
Compassion: Listening to the Cries of the World
Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
ALBERT SCHWEITZER
attributed, Living Faith: Christianity and Social Issues
Compassion does not only refine and civilize human nature, but has something in it more pleasing and agreeable, than what can be met with in such an indolent happiness, such an indifference to mankind, as that in which the stoics placed their wisdom. As love is the most delightful passion, pity is nothing else but love softened by a degree of sorrow: In short, it is a kind of pleasing anguish, anguish as well as generous sympathy, that knits mankind together, and blends them in the same common lot.
RICHARD STEELE
The Spectator, Jun. 5, 1712
Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.
HENRI J. M. NOUWEN
Words of Hope and Healing
Compassion makes you a lotus. You start rising above the muddy world of desires, greed, anger. Compassion is a transformation of your energies.
OSHO
Compassion: The Ultimate Flowering of Love
Great compassion is the root of all spiritual paths, and of all Superior beings.
GESHE KELSANG GYATSO
Ocean of Nectar: Wisdom and Compassion in Mahayana Buddhism
In the beginning, compassion is like the seed without which we cannot have any fruit; in the middle, compassion is like water to nourish the see we have planted; in the end, compassion is like the warmth of the sun that brings the fruit to ripening.
BUDDHA
attributed, Trainings in Compassion: Manuals on the Meditation of Avalokiteshvara
I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.
MOTHER TERESA
A Gift for God: Prayers and Meditations
Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.
ANDREW BOYD
Daily Afflictions
Half the misery of human life might be extinguished, would men alleviate the general curse they be under, by mutual offices of compassion, benevolence, and humanity.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Sep. 13, 1711
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.
MILAN KUNDERA
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The ideal of compassion is not feeling bad for what we cannot do; it is joyfully and energetically doing all that we can for others in any given moment.
LORNE LADNER
The Lost Art of Compassion
We cannot do compassion. We can only be compassion.
GITA BELLIN
Amazing Grace Series: Compassion
The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe. Your heart is that large: trust it.
JOANNA MACY
Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age