Compassion Quotes

In after-years he would tell of an incident that took place at one of their encampments: We were with the Prophet when a Companion brought in a fledgling that he had caught, and one of the parent birds came and threw itself into the hands of him who had taken its young. I saw men's faces full of wonderment, and the Prophet said: 'Do ye wonder at this bird? Ye have taken its young, and it hath thrown itself down in merciful tenderness unto its young. Yet I swear by God, Your Lord is more merciful unto you than is this bird unto its fledgling. And he told the man to put back the young bird where he had found it. He also said: God hath a hundred mercies,and one of them hath He sent down amongst jinn and men and cattle and beasts of prey. Thereby they are kind and merciful unto one another, and thereby the wild creature inclineth in tenderness unto her offspring. And ninety-nine mercies hath God reserved unto Himself, that therewith He may show mercy unto His slaves on the day of the Resurrection.

~ Martin Lings

Don't always use PAIN that you receive as an excuse to GIVE PAIN...

~ Tsem Tulku Rinpoche

There’s often a reason why people and dogs bite. It’s about self-protection. If we respect what we may not know about the suffering of others and look at them compassionately, we open the door that can lead to understanding.

~ Jennifer Skiff

We must empower our weak to be strong, and teach our strong to be compassionate. This will open a door to oneness.

~ Gary Hopkins

The true test of faith is how we treat those who can do nothing for us in return.

~ Dillon Burroughs

There is no problem that greater consciousness and compassion, enjoined with positive resolve of will cannot solve.

~ Bryant Mcgill

He told me that while he was in a Chinese Communist gulag for almost eighteen years, he faced danger on a few occasions. I thought he was referencing a threat to his own life. But when I asked, What danger? he answered, Losing compassion toward the Chinese.

~ Dalai Lama Xiv

Without love and compassion, nothing is sacred.

~ Bryant Mcgill

Interestingly, one mate of mine, a proper leftie, in his heyday all Red Wedge and right-on punch-ups, was melancholy. I thought I'd be overjoyed, but really it's just … another one bites the dust … This demonstrates, I suppose, that if you opposed Thatcher's ideas it was likely because of their lack of compassion, which is really just a word for love. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies.

~ Russell Brand

Jesus tells us: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ (Mk 12:31). How can we love our neighbor if we can’t or won’t love ourselves, at least a little? When we hold ourselves to unrealistic standards, that perfectionist attitude can’t help but trickle down. It becomes harder to have compassion for others if we have no compassion for ourselves.

~ Mary Deturris Poust

The authentic human has the might of compassion and the creative power to do any manner of good.

~ Bryant Mcgill

One-time rival and subsequent usurper Secretary of State Seward finally settled into an assessment of Lincoln that, His confidence and compassion increase every day.

~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

Spread your happiness to others and let them spread theirs to you.

~ Steve Maraboli

Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It's not something we have or don't have -- it's something we choose to practice.

~ Brené Brown

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more intelligent and more educated than college professors.

~ Maya Angelou

Ecclesiastes names thee Almighty, the Maccabees name thee Creator, the Epistle to the Ephesians names thee Liberty, Baruch names thee Immensity, the Psalms name thee Wisdom and Truth, John names thee Light, the Book of Kings names thee Lord, Exodus names thee Providence, Leviticus Sanctity, Esdras Justice, creation names thee God, man names thee Father; but Solomon names thee Compassion, which is the most beautiful of all thy names.

~ Victor Hugo

It is not what you leave to your children that matters, but what you leave in them.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Those who say life is knocking them down and giving them a tough time are usually the first to beat themselves up. Be on your own side.

~ Rasheed Ogunlaru

Tolstoy said, 'The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed either by a change of life or by a change of conscience.' Many of us have elected to adjust our consciences rather than our lives. Our powers of rationalization are unlimited. They allow us to live in luxury and indifference while others, whom we could help if we chose to, starve and go to hell.

~ Randy Alcorn

Familiarity is the gateway drug to empathy.

~ Io Tillett Wright

God's people are not to accumulate stuff for tomorrow but to share indiscriminately with the scandalous and holy confidence that God will provide for tomorrow. Then we need not stockpile stuff in barns or a 401(k), especially when there is someone in need.

~ Shane Claiborne

We become neighbors when we are willing to cross the road for one another. (...) There is a lot of road crossing to do. We are all very busy in our own circles. We have our own people to go to and our own affairs to take care of. But if we could cross the road once in a while and pay attention to what is happening on the other side, we might indeed become neighbors.

~ Henri J.m. Nouwen

Imagine you saw a colour in your dream, which you have never seen before. It doesn't consist of any colours or shades that you know. Trying to describe that colour would be as difficult as trying to belive that there is enough love & compassion in the world so every human can feel happiness.

~ Egor Kraft

Pity. What a useless emotion when you don't act on it. Pity is supposed to trigger compassion.

~ Lish Mcbride

...writers, like priests, should have compassion...and a sensitivity to pain...

~ John Geddes

Life has two choices: create or destruct. These choices are the backbone for all, within oneself and outside oneself. Too many ways of thinking are described by too many people that have no idea. If you're attached to your ways then detach, so you can change. Use this detachment in your writing, relationships, and understanding of life. Our future as individuals, as nations, and as mankind can only go one way. It's our choice whether we want the painful path or the peaceful path.

~ Mark Donnelly

If they had had a different neighbour, one less sel-absorbed and more concerned for others, a man of normal, charitable instincts, their desperate state would not have gone unnoticed, their distress-signals would have been heard, and perhaps they would have been rescued by now. Certainly they appeared utterly depraved, corrupt, vile and odious; but it is rare for those who have sunk so low not to be degraded in the process, and there comes a point, moreover, where the unfortunate and the infamous are grouped together, merged in a single, fateful world. They are les misérables - the outcasts, the underdogs. And who is to blame? Is it not the most fallen who have most need for charity?

~ Victor Hugo

No tear, is a wasted tear, if it spills out for love, whether in good times or bad.

~ Anthony Liccione

There are men who dig for gold, [Monseigneur Bienvenu] dug for compassion.

~ Victor Hugo

Mindful of not thanking their benefactors, in case, like wights, they took offense, she added, Your kindness is gratefully acknowledged. May your trees be forever fruitful.

~ Cecilia Dart-Thornton

She had seen what it cost him and her heart quickened with compassion. For that alone, she might have loved him almost.

~ Cecilia Dart-Thornton

We can all benefit by learning to express and meet out physical needs in a loving, caressing and compassionate way

~ David Bresler

Since my arrival in Rome, I have had many opportunities to wonder if compassion’s opposite is cruelty, or to reflect whether or not indifference would serve as a better black to its white.

~ Andrew Levkoff

I was grateful to Ben the way you are grateful to someone who is unexpectedly kind.

~ Cheryl Drake Harris

SANSHO THE BAILIFF (1954) 'Without compassion a man is no longer human.' So states Taira.

~ Steven Jay Schneider

LOVE is measured in GAUGE TWENTY- specifically, love pressure in the surrounding area. If it drops below four percent, though, you may have trouble-the VW might get sad, slow down, or even stop altogether. If this occurs, you have to immediately find/write a story that somehow convinces him that there is more love, caring or compassion in the area than he thinks there is. I can’t tell you how many times this has been a problem for us- how many trips were interrupted because I had to head into the nearest populated town to see if we could find examples of kindness.

~ Christopher Boucher

Why are...poor people more ready to share their goods than rich people? The answer is easy: The poor have little to lose; the rich have more to lose and they are more attached to their possessions. Poverty provides a deeper motivation for understanding your neighbors, welcoming others and attending to those who are suffering. I would go so far as to say that poverty helps you understand what happiness is, what serenity is in life.

~ Piero Gheddo

Love is my decision to make your problem my problem.

~ Robert A. Schuller

Her own misery filled her heart—there was no room in it for other people's sorrow.

~ George Eliot

God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many professing Christians have been deceived by this doctrine is how little they give and how much they own. God has prospered them. And by an almost irresistible law of consumer culture (baptized by a doctrine of health, wealth, and prosperity) they have bought bigger (and more) houses, newer (and more) cars, fancier (and more) clothes, better (and more) meat, and all manner of trinkets and gadgets and containers and devices and equipment to make life more fun. They will object: Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper his people? Indeed! God increases our yield, so that by giving we can prove our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man's business so that he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that 17,000 unreached people can be reached with the gospel. He prospers the business so that 12 percent of the world's population can move a step back from the precipice of starvation.

~ John Piper