quotations about compassion
I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral ... Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things.
JOHN LE CARRE
Tinker
Most women bestow their favors upon men, not from Passion, but from Compassion.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Compassion goes on giving, but knows no feeling of giving, knows no feeling that "I am the giver." And then existence goes on responding in thousands of ways. You give a little love and from everywhere love starts flowing. The man of compassion is not trying to snatch anything away, he is not greedy. He does not wait for the return, he goes on giving. He goes on getting too, but that is not in his mind.
OSHO
Compassion: The Ultimate Flowering of Love
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
DALAI LAMA XIV
The Art of Happiness
The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.
RICHARD FEYNMAN
What Do You Care What Other People Think?
Liberals measure compassion by how many people are given welfare. Conservatives measure compassion by how many people no longer need it.
RUSH LIMBAUGH
"35 Undeniable Truths of Life"
Compassion is silent but does not remain secluded. It goes out at the sight of trouble, sin, and need.
E. M. BOUNDS
E. M. Bounds: Classic Collection on Prayer
Grief for the calamity of another is pity, and arises from the imagination that the like calamity may befall himself; and, therefore, it is called compassion, or in the phrase of the present time a fellow-feeling.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Love and compassion are the mother and father of a smile. We need to create more smiles in our world today. Smiles, after all, pave the way to a happy world.
STEVE MARABOLI
Life
I know the compassion of others is a relief at first. I don't despise it. But it can't quench pain, it slips through your soul as through a sieve. And when our suffering has been dragged from one pity to another, as from one mouth to another, we can no longer respect or love it.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
Compassion is a verb.
THICH NHAT HANH
attributed, A Heart Full of Peace
It is only with true love and compassion that we can begin to mend what is broken in the world. It is these two blessed things that can begin to heal all broken hearts.
STEVE MARABOLI
Life
He who pitieth another recommendeth himself; but he who is without compassion deserveth not.
ROBERT DODSLEY
The Economy of Human Life
Compassion is that species of affection which is excited either by the actual distress of its object, or by some impending calamity, which appears inevitable; it is a benevolent sorrow for the sufferings or approaching misery of another.
CHARLES BUCK
A Theological Dictionary
Pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
Cruelty is no more the cure of crimes than it is the cure of sufferings; compassion, in the first instance, is good for both; I have known it to bring compunction when nothing else would.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
If one doth act in friendly wise,
With no evil thought toward any single creature,
And in so doing becometh proper,
And if he have compassion in his soul
Toward all living beings--this noble one
Doth acquire abundant Virtue.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
Iti-Vuttaka
Compassion is the basis of morality.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
The Philosophy of Schopenhauer
If we yield to false compassion, industry will go to ruin; sloth will predominate if man has nothing to hope or fear from his own exertions; all being secure of subsistence, will look to their neighbors for support, being idle in their own business and a burden to the public.
TACITUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Be kind to people whether they deserve your kindness or not. If your kindness reaches the deserving good for you if your kindness reaches the undeserving take joy in your compassion.
JAMES FADIMAN
Essential Sufism