Compassion

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Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. ~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Compassion is empathic or emotional understanding of the suffering and emotions of others. It is regarded as a fundamental aspect of human love, a cornerstone of social interconnection and humanism, and foundational to the highest principles of ethical philosophy, society, and personhood.

Quotes[edit]

When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity. ~ George Eliot
  • Never apologize for showing feeling, my friend. Remember that when you do so, you apologize for truth.
    • Benjamin Disraeli, in Contarini Fleming : A Psychological Autobiography (1832), p. 45; sometimes paraphrased: "Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth."
  • I have very strongly of late the wish that others may be as sensitive as myself and the fear that they will not be. Colleague Sir Frank Adcock stumped by the sunset-portent unheeding. And I can't arge that I gain, or that others would gain, anything for humanity by observing and recording what went on for a few moments in the sky on Boar Race evening. I sometimes pretend to myself that I am public-spirited. I am not. I am an hedonist who wants pleasant sensations. On the other hand I am not the usual type of hedonist, for I want sensations to be had – if not by myself, then by someone else. The show shouldn't end with my death, which becomes a minor boo-hoo.
  • Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
  • A religious man is a person ... whose greatest passion is compassion.
  • Men are only great as they are kind.
    • Published as a "Roycroft Motto" in Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians (1901) by Elbert Hubbard, p. 105
  • The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.
    • Thomas Merton, in his final address, during a conference on East-West monastic dialogue, delivered just two hours before his death (10 December 1968), quoted in Religious Education, Vol. 73 (1978), p. 292
  • Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
  • It is not sufficient to have compassion only for those who are cute.
  • Compassion is when you see that someone needs help and you wanna help 'em.
  • Compassion is when you care enough to help someone with their problem and take time to find out what's bothering 'em.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)[edit]

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
  • There never was any heart truly great and generous that was not also tender and compassionate.
  • When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.
  • While we would have our young sisters imitate, as they cannot fail to love, the conduct of Ruth, will not their elders do well to ponder on, and imitate the tenderness of Naomi? Would we have our daughters Ruths, we must be Naomis.
  • I was never fit to say a word to a sinner, except when I had a broken heart myself.

Unsourced[edit]

  • I look at the Samurai because they were the artists of their time. What I think struck me when I read Bushido is compassion. 'If there's no one there to help, go out and find someone to help.' That hit me, because I try to lead my life like that.
  • You desire that which exceeds my humble powers, but I trust in the compassion and mercy of the All-powerful God.
  • The value of compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater burden can be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or understands.
  • To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against.
  • When you stop giving and offering something to the rest of the world, it's time to turn out the lights.
  • People don't realize a lot of things. I was trying to get a divorce from him, and he didn't want to give me one. Unless you know each person's situation, you don't know why they act the way they act. You have to try to have compassion.
  • Some people are filled by compassion and a desire to do good, and some simply don't think anything's going to make a difference.
  • Compassion is a call, a demand of nature, to relieve the unhappy as hunger is a natural call for food.
  • A simple and proper function of government is just to make it easy for us to do good and difficult for us to do wrong.
  • I think one of the best words in the English language is compassion. I think it holds everything. It holds love, it holds care... and if everybody just did something. We all make a difference.
  • Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace! Where there is hatred let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon.
  • We look into mirrors but we only see the effects of our times on us not our effects on others.
  • It is a great consolation for me to remember that the Lord, to whom I had drawn near in humble and child-like faith, has suffered and died for me, and that He will look on me in love and compassion.
  • You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.
  • Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little.
  • Before I was humiliated I was like a stone that lies in deep mud, and he who is mighty came and in his compassion raised me up and exalted me very high and placed me on the top of the wall.
  • I admire the fact that the central core of Buddhist teaching involves mindfulness and loving kindness and compassion.
  • A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
  • The war in Iraq has as much to do with terrorism as the administration has to do with compassion.
  • How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
  • Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.
  • I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it.
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