quotations about compassion
Heaven seems to indicate the duty of even barren compassion, by inclining us to weep for evils which we cannot remedy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Life and Writings
Our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh when we learn where the outcast weeps.
BRENNAN MANNING
Abba's Child
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
Compassion crowns the soul with its truest victory.
ABERJHANI
The River of Winged Dreams
The family is a school of compassion because it is here that we learn to live with other people.
KAREN ARMSTRONG
Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life
The ugliest thing I have ever seen is a human being without compassion.
ANONYMOUS
Compassion is the chief law of human existence.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
The Idiot
There is no small kindness; every compassionate act makes large the world.
MARY ANNE RADMACHER
Live with Intention: Rediscovering What We Deeply Know
Meditation is a flower and compassion is its fragrance. Exactly like that it happens. The flower blooms and the fragrance spreads on the winds in all directions, to be carried to the very ends of earth. But the basic thing is the blooming of the flower. Man is also carrying a potentiality for flowering within him. Until and unless the inner being of man flowers, the fragrance of compassion is not possible. Compassion cannot be practiced. It is not a discipline. You cannot manage it. It is beyond you. If you meditate, one day, suddenly, you become aware of a new phenomenon, absolutely strange--from your being, compassion is flowing towards the whole of existence. Undirected, unaddressed, it is moving to the very ends of existence.
OSHO
Compassion: The Ultimate Flowering of Love
There's no prescription that's sold
That can heal you like compassion
TODD RUNDGREN
"Compassion"
Most women bestow their favors upon men, not from Passion, but from Compassion.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Compassion is like a passage. Everything passes through it. Nothing can stay there. Compassion is love expressed in all its fullness.
SRI MATA AMRITANANDAMAYI DEVI
Unity is Peace
A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.
STEVE MARABOLI
Life
Some people's compassion is worse than their indifference or even hatred.
E. P. DAY
attributed, Day's Collacon
Compassion is not a quality to be cultivated in isolation, aloof from life. It is easy to be compassionate from a distance, when your heart is undisturbed. When you are surrounded by those who love and care for you, when you have built a world where pain is repressed or ignored, you can easily immerse yourself in thoughts of love and tolerance. Yet that is a fragile world, built on foundations that will always crumble. Compassion speaks of the willingness to engage with tragedy, loss, and pain. Its domain is not only the world of those you love and care for, but equally the people who threaten you, the countless people you don't know, the homeless person you meet on the street, and the situations of anger and hatred you recoil from. It is here that you learn about the depths of tolerance and understanding that are possible for each one of us. It is here that you learn about dignity, meaning, and greatness of heart.
CHRISTINA FELDMAN
Compassion: Listening to the Cries of the World
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"
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
Compassion is not just feeling with someone, but seeking to change the situation. Frequently people think compassion and love are merely sentimental. No! They are very demanding. If you are goint to be compassionate, be prepared for action!
DESMOND TUTU
Psychology Today, Mar/Apr 2005
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 mixed passion, composed of love and sorrow.
NOAH WEBSTER
An American Dictionary