Compassion Quotes

Exercise the muscles that compassionately open the heart.In your writing and your life.

~ Dinty W. Moore

And as I thought about the body of Ray Brower in this light- or lack of it- what I felt was not queasiness or fear that he would suddenly appear before us, a green and gibbering banshee whose purpose was to drive us back the way we had come before we could disturb his- its- peace,but a sudden and unexpected wash of pity that he should be so alone and so defenceless in the dark that was now coming over our side of the world.

~ Stephen King

Compassion doesn't arise from the belief that the evil in the world is somebody else's fault or that it is a result of poor choices a suffering person has made.

~ Holly Sprink

Understanding that you can’t truly take credit for your successes, nor truly blame others for their failures will humble you and make you more compassionate.Empathy is intuitive, but is also something you can work on, intellectually.

~ Tim Minchin

You can’t eat beauty, it doesn't feed you...beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be. You can’t rely on how you look to sustain you. What actually sustains us, what is fundamentally beautiful, is compassion--for yourself and for those around you. That kind of beauty inflames the heart and enchants the soul.

~ Lupita Nyong O

Culture now spreads at central nervous system speed. It’s a shame that compassion doesn’t.

~ Dean Cavanagh

Often we withhold our affections, waiting first for love to be extended to us. The irony is that we are loved for loving.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

We have the power to improve our work lives immeasurably through awareness, compassion, patience & ingenuity.

~ Sharon Salzberg

To be human is, primarily, to embrace that we are human with strengths and weaknesses, and that our humanity is preordained to seek the Truth, Good and Beauty as part of our humanity. To be human is to be an agent of peace, justice, and reconciliation in our community or society. To be human is to be heroic and generous in an unobtrusive way, free from any selfish motive, with no media to show the litany of our good deeds. To be human is to have time to listen to the story of a grieving soul, to give hope to the hopeless, to give love to the unloved.(Danny Castillones Sillada, A reason to be Human: Human Pathos and Compassion)

~ Danny Castillones Sillada

When the range and depth of the suffering of others and what we do to one another no longer bothers us, nor moves us to remedy the situation and stop the pain, then we have lost a part of our own humanity, our own soul.

~ Megan Mckenna

Not everyone wants to take up meditation, but most people can feel an alignment with values like mutual respect, insightful investigation, listening to one another.Meditation is a way to help those values become real in day-to-day life, helping people to understand themselves more and more and have a way to not get lost in old patterns.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Some very hungry people gathered to discuss how to distribute a small amount of food. It was understood that each church was supposed to take care of its own. The local Episcopal rector said, My church, follow me. The Presbyterian minister said, Mine, follow me. And the other denominations did the same. There were a lot of folks left. Then, William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, stepped forward and said: All of you who belong to nobody, you follow me.

~ Hal Brady

Many times one is forced to descend to deep, dark regions, in order to find there the greatest, noblest and freest light.

~ Abraham Isaac Kook

The essence of a mature human being in religious terms is the ability to see, to be aware of others' suffering and to be touched by it.

~ Megan Mckenna

Contemplating this suffering which is unbearable to us, and is unbearable to others, too, can produce awake mind, which arises from the compassion that wishes to free all living beings from suffering.

~ Dalai Lama Xiv

There are two choices: to be human, made in the image of God, with Jesus; warp to be in human, consumed with greed and on aware of the pain that is inflicted upon others. Put in simple options, it is to be human and forgive, make peace in spite of all hatred, or to be in human and kill, dividing the spoils. To be dead before you die.

~ Megan Mckenna

The heart of a Christian, who believes and feels, cannot pass the hardships and deprivations of the poor without helping them.

~ Louis Guanella

Keep God within His and anothers' arm's reach.

~ Annette Schrab Clark

She considered compassion the highest virtue, but that night on Obstetric Ward B, it had had a twin sister whose face was invisible to Carla. The suffering women, however, had recognized it immediately: condemnation.

~ Erik Valeur

Meditation is not about what's happening, it is about how we're relating to what's happening.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Those who really can receive bread from a stranger and smile in gratitude, can feed many without even realizing it. Those who can sit in silence with their fellow man not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief, and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart, can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.

~ Henri J.m. Nouwen

To die to our neighbors means to stop judging them, to stop evaluating them, and thus to become free to be compassionate. Compassion can never coexist with judgment because judgment creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.

~ Henri J.m. Nouwen

Compassion is often mistaken for weakness, when the fact is, there is very little that is more powerful than the courage it takes to give it.

~ Kristen Ashley

How is it possible that suffering that is neither my own nor of my concern should immediately affect me as though it were my own, and with such force that is moves me to action?

~ Arthur Schopenhauer

How does one develop compassion for someone with a completely different set of values without reading something from their point of view? Books are one of the ways in which we can truly get into the heads of people we would never meet in our ordinary lives and travel to countries we would otherwise never visit.

~ Jennifer Steil

All work done with love is healing work.

~ Eric Micha'el Leventhal

If you don't love yourself, it makes you incapable of knowing how to love another person.

~ Ellen J. Barrier

Kindness wields a sword of light against the darkness.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Despite our instinct to polarize ourselves in the name of survival, an indescribable connection - call it love or compassion - pervades and dissolves our apparent separation. This oneness transcends physical and emotional relationships; it's a deep connection that surfaces only when the ego-laden barriers are lifted.

~ Rajeev Kurapati

Kindness is still the best antidote.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Mindfulness helps us to set boundaries by revealing what makes us unhappy & what brings us peace.

~ Sharon Salzberg

We deny the same love to others that we deny ourselves. We distort others in the same way we distort ourselves.

~ Vironika Tugaleva

In Dzokchen, compassion is much more than the virtue of loving kindness. Nor does the word compassion in the Dzokchen context denote its English etymological meaning, “suffering together” or “empathy,” although both these meanings may be inferred. Essentially, compassion indicates an open and receptive mind responding spontaneously to the exigencies of an ever-changing field of vibration to sustain the optimal awareness that serves self-and-others’ ultimate desire for liberation and well-being. The conventional meaning of compassion denotes the latter, active part of this definition, and, due to the accretions of Christian connotation, response is limited to specifically virtuous activity. “Responsiveness” defines the origin and cause of selfless activity that can encompass all manner of response. On this nondual Dzokchen path virtue is the effect, not the cause; the ultimate compassionate response is whatever action maximizes Knowledge—loving kindness is the automatic function of Awareness.

~ Keith Dowman

Being happy at work is possible for all of us, anytime & anywhere, with open eyes and a caring heart

~ Sharon Salzberg

You will achieve what you want to achieve, only if you can cope with the theory of altruism.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted.

~ Betty Smith

We have the spotless Lamb of God bound up in a human body. This is the One who loved us so much that He was willing to reduce Himself to a human egg. The Immaculate Conception was not just about the epitome of love and grace, it was about the willingness of the Son to travel the journey of the human experience.

~ Don Wilton

I came to recognise that, apart from her [Françoise's] own kinsfolk, the sufferings of humanity inspired in her a pity which increased in direct ratio to the distance separating the sufferers from herself.

~ Marcel Proust

The lower a human being descends, the more asleep and inhumane he becomes. Those beings that lack Compassion, Love, and Peace are the true targets of the ego system...

~ Jacqueline Ripstein

Go out and heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons and preach the kingdom. But do it for only one reason. Your motive should be an overwhelming love and compassion for those in need. There is no other legitimate motive for healing.

~ Praying Medic