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"This is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity-that of sympathy and pity toward living creatures like himself-and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life!"
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"I do not believe in a Science that cannot wipe the tears of a widow, or bring a piece of bread to the starving mouth of an orphan. However sophisticated may be the scientific achievements, however well-spun may be the philosophy behind them, I do not call them Science, unless they are put to practice in the pursuit of easing the sufferings of the human society."

"Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."

"Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."

"There is something lovable about almost everyone you encounter. Uncover it, and you will experience true compassion."

"If only you would understand the silent speech and the real pain within the innermost man of they that suffer in silence, you would never keep silent to their suffering. So many people can't speak everything about how they are suffering for the sake of dignity and confidentiality. Though they smile, they smile out of a deep pain within. When you look at someone suffering, just see how he is suffering and in so far as you can, be the joy to the innermost man of the person to the best of your ability. Don't wait for his words, just look and see!"

"Two things put me in the spirit to give. One is that I have come to think of everyone with whom I come into contast as a patient in the emergency room. I see a lot of gaping wounds and dazed expressions. Or, as Marianne Moore put it, "The world's an orphan's home." And this feels more true than almost anything else I know. But so many of us can be soothed by writing: think of how many times you have opened a book, read one line, and said, "Yes!" And I want to give people that feeling, too, of connection, communication."

"The coldest depth of Hell is reserved for people who abandon kittens."

"Kindness alchemizes the soul, and a sweeter, richer life is the delicious result."

"A brother's sympathy is more precious than an angel's embassy."

"Be a good listener, don't judge and don't put boundaries on someone else's grief."
Explore more quotes by Leo Tolstoy

"The main qualities that had earned him this universal respect in the service were, first, an extreme indulgence towards people, based on his awareness of his own shortcomings; second, a perfect liberalism, not the sort he read about in the newspapers, but the sort he had in his blood, which made him treat all people, whatever their rank or status, in a perfectly equal and identical way; and, third - most important - a perfect indifference to the business he was occupied with, owing to which he never got carried away and never made mistakes."

"Well, do you suppose I made up my mind then that what I had seen was something sickening? Not a bit of it. 'If it was done with such assurance and everyone thought it was necessary, then they must have known something I didn't,' was what I thought, and I tried to find out what it was. But I couldn't, no matter how hard I exerted myself. And since I couldn't, I couldn't join the army as I'd planned to, and not only did I not join the army, I couldn't find a place for myself anywhere in society, and ended up being no good for anything, as you can see.'Oh yes, we know all about how you're no good for anything,' said one of us, 'But tell us: how many men would be no good for anything if it weren't for the likes of you?"

"Man is created for happiness, that happiness lies in himself, in the satisfaction of simple human needs; and that all unhappiness is due, not to privation but to superfluity."

"Seize the moments of happiness, Love and be Loved!That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly!"

"A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, 'Today I'm going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep."

"One's writing is good only when the intelligence and the imagination are in equilibrium. As soon as one of them overbalances the other, it's all up; you may as well throw it away and begin afresh."

"If only [people] understood that every thought is both false and true! False by one-sidenedness resulting from man's inability to embrace the whole truth, and true as an expression of one fact of human endeavor."
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