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Compassion Quotes
"There's nothing wrong with the free-enterprise system. But it has to have some compassion."
22
"To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them. Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more - and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetize."
22
"Beside us lies a fair-headed recruit in utter terror. He has buried his face in his hands, his helmet has fallen off. I fish hold of it and try to put it back on his head. He looks up, pushes the helmet off and like a child creeps under my arm, his head close to my breast. The little shoulders heave. Shoulders just like Kemmerich's. I let him be."
22
"A tired starving dog so thin and frail it looks like it could be knocked over by the wind. But it's staring at me. Unafraid. Mouth opened. Tongue lolling. I want to laugh out loud. I glanced around quickly before scooping the dog into my arms. I don't need to give my father anymore reasons to castrate me, and I don't trust my soldiers not to report something like this. That I would play with the dog."
22
"The cliché is true: People don't care what we know until they know we care."
22
"First partakers of love are always enveloped with the real intention."
21
"We have to bring the humanity and compassion back."
21
"If I really care for you, if I try to think myself into your position and orientation, then the world is bettered by my effort at understanding and comprehension. If you respond to my effort by trying to extend the same sympathy and understanding to others in turn, then the betterment of the world has been minutely but significantly extended. We want people to feel with us, more than to act for us."
21
"If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher."
21
"If you love people, you have no desire to judge them."
20
"The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God's love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother and sister when we learn to listen to them."
20
"Alas, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the compassionate?And what in the world has caused more suffering than the follies of the compassionate?Woe to all lovers who cannot surmount pity!Thus spoke the Devil to me once: Even God has his Hell: it is his love for man.And I lately heard him say these words: God is dead; God has died of his pity for man."
20
"There were two classes of charitable people: one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all."
20
"I dedicate the merit of the occasion to all beings. This gesture of universal friendship has been likened to a drop of fresh spring water. If we put it on a rock in the sunshine, it will soon evaporate. If we put it in the ocean, however, it will never be lost. Thus the wish is made that we not keep the teachings to ourselves but to use them to benefit others."
20
"If you can find a cause that touches your soul it will make you a better person, it will show you the power of helping others and ultimately the biggest winner is us. Giving to others helps us to grow, to have a different outlook in life, to appreciate what we have and to be more positive."
19
"Or help one fainting RobinUnto his Nest againI shall not live in vain."
19
"The suffering of a loved one was in many ways worse than one's one suffering because it left one feeling so very helpless."
19
"It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given pain even to another."
19
"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."
18
"Do we know our poor people? Do we know the poor in our house, in our family? Perhaps they are not hungry for a piece of bread. Perhaps our children, husband, wife, are not hungry, or naked, or dispossessed, but are you sure there is no one there who feels unwanted, deprived of affection?"
18
"If literature does one thing, it makes you more empathetic by making you live other lives and feel the pain of others. Ideologues don't feel the pain of others because they haven't imaginatively got under their skins."
18
"And because she did not shove this down my throat, this dawned on me."
18
"The only thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give is enough love."
18
"I only care about the helped less, and the helpless, not the helpfest or the hellfest."
18
"Those doves below, the ones utterly cared for, never endangered ones, cannot know tenderness."
18
"Opportunities to share love and compassion are all around us. Its going to take an army of compassionate people to heal our world. How will you show yours?"
18
"Cultivating loving kindness for ourselves is the foundation of real love for our friends and family, for new people we encounter in our daily lives, for all beings and for life itself."
18
"Look at every creature from the window of compassion with the eyes of love!"
18
"Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses."
17
"Imagine how many suicide victims would still be with us, if only the right person said the right thing at the right time."
17
"When you tend to another's dying embers, you find both warmth and an increase in the glow of your own fire."
17
"Do not presume, well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed, to criticize the poor."
17
"I cannot think who my residents hurt but how I can give them tools to remain on the right side of civilization."
17
"Many people close themselves off from the world when they are under pressure. That is understandable. I have gone through periods when I didn't want to meet people because I didn't feel good about my situation in life and that made my life even more stressful. Remind yourself often about how much of an impact compassion and friendship can have on your life. You need to get out there, be compassionate and share your time and your life with your friends and other people that need your support. It's worth it on every level."
17
"There is a lot of unhappiness in this world. Try not to feed it."
17
"You did the best you could, the best you knew how at the time." It was something like that. From Oprah on an Oprah show. Then I believe my quote above was from Maya Angelou on the Oprah show, not Oprah herself. I had heard it before but it was on Oprah's show again 1-7-09 and she said Maya had said it."
17
"My intention is not to define a perfect life and then cause an unhappy analysis of what you are not doing correctly or are incapable of doing."
17
"I'm just helping someone who is unfortunate. Is that a crime?"
17
"Smile, even when others do not. Care, even when others will not. Love, even when others could not. Give, even when others cannot."
17
"Our tenderness, compassion and kindness go with sensitive generous heart that should not be abused by others."
17
"Wanting to change to improve a person's situation means offering him for difficulties in which he is practiced and experienced other difficulties that will find him perhaps even more bewildered."
17
"Indiscriminately share your smile."
17
"You fellas don' know what you're doin. You're helpin to starve kids...You don' know what you're a' doin'."
17
"Be nice to people... maybe it'll be unappreciated, unreciprocated, or ignored, but spread the love anyway. We rise by lifting others."
17
"If I can see pain in your eyes then share with me your tears. If I can see joy in your eyes then share with me your smile."
17
"Writers, like priests, should have compassion...and a sensitivity to pain..."
16
"Understanding and love aren't two separate things, they're just one."
16
"Compassion is born from understanding suffering. We all should learn to embrace our own suffering, to listen to it deeply, and to have a deep look into its nature."
16
"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."
16
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