Compassion Quotes

No one's life will be harder because I exist.

~ Chris Matakas

Those moral laws on which all human excellence is founded—a love of truth in ourselves, and a sincere sympathy with our fellow-creatures.

~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Live with compassion, work with confidence, and create opportunities for others to conquer the world.

~ Farshad Asl

Because…” Gabriel closed his eyes to his truth. Because the premise that a child must be threatened with harm to earn God’s blessing is no longer acceptable to me; because that smug face cannot be the face of my God; because a rejecting and shaming God is a God of men created by men to serve the agendas of men; because I couldn’t find any stained glass window maker who is able to capture the face of the God I want to see—the God of hope, of compassion, of acceptance.

~ Neil Abramson

The day you find out who you are is when you look back and realize that it was never the words, rather your actions that defined you.

~ Shannon L. Alder

We can bring heaven on the earth when we have compassion for all living beings.

~ Amit Ray

Among wise men there is no place at all left for hatred. For no one except the greatest of fools would hate good men. And there is no reason at all for hating the bad. For just as weakness is a disease of the body, so wickedness is a disease of the mind. And if this is so, since we think of people who are sick in body as deserving sympathy rather than hatred, much more so do they deserve pity rather than blame who suffer an evil more severe than any physical illness.

~ Boethius

Always remember to give yourself the kindness, compassion and consideration you give to others.

~ Miya Yamanouchi

Unless we understand how the twists and turns of life operate to make us, we cannot comprehend who and what we are. Without self-awareness, we are blind to registering the intertexture of other people’s inner life. Gracefully enduring personal hardships expands our minds to extend sympathy and empathy for other people. By casting our personal life experiences into a supple storytelling casing, we create the translucent membrane that quarters the fusion of our flesh, nerves, blood, and bones. Self-understanding is an essential step in loving the entire world.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

We could scan each car for terrorists and lovers she could lean into my camouflage her head resting on woven trees. When they come for her body she could run deep into my uniform into the forest of me where they could never find her.

~ Jalina Mhyana

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.

~ George Washington Carver

Now I need to speak directly and with compassion to those who have already pushed open the door of premarital sex. The monster has been released. You've lost your virginity and may have been sexually active for years. Perhaps you've been carrying a load of guilt for doing what you knew was wrong.

~ James C. Dobson

Compassion and kindness it turned out, was good for your health.

~ James R. Doty

The darker side of Nietzsche’s ideas was incorporated into the Nazi belief system. Part of the link was straightforward: some things Nietzsche said were pure Nazi doctrine. His comments that ‘The extinction of many types of people is just as desirable as any form of reproduction’ and that ‘the tendency must be towards the rendering extinct of the wretched, the deformed, the degenerate’ could come from any work on racial hygiene. Nietzsche’s central contribution was not these explicitly Social Darwinist views, but his rejection of the Judeo-Christian morality of compassion for the weak. Self-creation required hardness towards oneself: a strong will imposing coherence on conflicting impulses. It also requires hardness on others. Conflicts between the self-creative projects of different people made inevitable the attempt to dominate others. The whole of life was a struggle in which victory went to the brave and to the strong-willed. Noble human qualities, linked with the will to power, were brought out in combat but atrophied in peace. Compassion was weakness, cowardice and self-deception. The Judeo-Christian emphasis on it was poison. In drawing these consequences from his beliefs about the death of God and from Social Darwinism, Nietzsche provided the part of the Nazi belief system which ‘justified’ the cruel steps they took to implement their other beliefs.

~ Jonathan Glover

There are miracles and glory in every child. Our glory lies in empowering them to flourish their glory.

~ Amit Ray

Every individual whom you interact with affects the flow of energy in your body. Some flow with positivity spreading love and compassion, making you happy. Others flow like venom, harming you. The question is what to do with these negative people? Either, you can simply throw them out of your life and not let them affect you anymore. The other way is to have so much positivity and optimism that their negativity is covered up with your energy!

~ Neelam Saxena Chandra

As for my own religious practice, I try to live my life pursuing what I call the Bodhisattva ideal. According to Buddhist thought, a Bodhisattva is someone on the path to Buddhahood wo dedicates themselves entirely to helping all other sentient beings towards release from suffering. The word Bodhisattva can best be understood by translating the Bodhi and Sattva separately: Bodhi means the understanding or wisdom of the ultimate nature of reality, and a Sattva is someone who is motivated by universal compassion. The Bodhissatva ideal is thus the aspiration to practise infinite compassion with infinite wisdom. releasing sentient beings from suffering.

~ Dalai Lama Xiv

A person’s attitude creates the tone of his or her life. The highest expression of human dignity is to live a purposeful life devoted to principles and exhibiting compassion for other people.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Truly listening, attentively, and with care, is one of the simplest and most kind gifts we can give anyone.

~ John Bruna

Punker, what's compassion for a world this far gone? The streets don't give a fuck. It's a bummer, your care slides down its target like beads of rain on rock. There's no aquifer for any shit like this. Where does compassion go and can it be returned? You're Donn in this world, with the staff and the purple band. The artificer. Walking the bandoned suites of hell and your eyeballs thinking, what can be saved? Not their gear but its aspects. You started kung fu way later than the rest, and before that you saw compassion in a history spiel. Now it keeps washing up on your shore. Giving a shit might be made of parts, it might be made solo. It might be an invasive species or not. Punks evolved from dinos too. Not even cross time and distance. But the spikes on their heads are the same.

~ Noah Wareness

Your genuine happiness does not come from other people, activities or things, it comes from living a meaningful life - a life that is in alignment with your values and is beneficial.

~ John Bruna

When you show compassion instead of being judgemental. You will not undergo your own judgement, but you will receive your own love

~ Guus Gelsing

One of the realities we're all called to go through is to move from repulsion to compassion and from compassion to wonderment.

~ Mother Teresa

Being kind, being compassionate, being respectful does not make you weak. More often, it's the harder path to take.

~ Liza M. Wiemer

When someone is hurt andwe hear ourselves sayingI don't understand, whyPAUSEAt the pause, ask What am I missing here ?At the pause, stop judging, stop reacting,get curious and believe their hurt stateAt the pause, tap into their heart and mind.Now see how this pause transforms the conversation.

~ Wordions

See life and feel its pulses with the eyes of a compassionate mother.

~ Amit Ray

Fall open. Break open. Sit with others' openness. Let love be your medicine.

~ Vironika Tugaleva

Never deprecate another person's sufferings even when imaginary.

~ James Purdy

I wanted, for so long, for someone to understand me better than I understood myself, to take control of me, to save me, to make it all better. I thought that the hardest part of a loving, mutually healing relationship would be showing my vulnerable, raw spots to a person, even though I'd been hurt so many times before. This has not been the hardest part. The actual hardest part has been realizing that no one, no matter how compassionate and kind they are, will say the perfect things always. Myself included. The hardest part has been learning to communicate what I need, to hear what others need, to tell others how to tell me what they need. Intimacy takes a lot of communication. We all have triggers. I don't know your triggers and you don't know mine. No matter how much I love or trust you, you cannot possibly know exactly the words I need to hear, the words I don't want to hear, and the way I like to be touched. And how strange that we expect these things of each other. How strange, and self-sabotaging, that we refuse to get into relationships and friendships with people unless they treat us in just that perfect way. We've been raised to want fairy tales. We've been raised to wait for flawless saviors to rescue us. But the savior isn't flawless and the savior is not coming. The savior is you. The savior is still learning. The savior is never done learning. The savior is a human being. Forget perfect. Forget flawless. And start speaking your truth. Start speaking what you want and how you want it. And start asking and listening, really listening, to what the people around you say. Maybe, then, we will stop abandoning and hurting each other. Maybe, then, there's hope for us.

~ Vironika Tugaleva

Nothing you become will disappoint me; I have no preconception that I'd like to see you be or do. I have no desire to foresee you, only to discover you.

~ Mary Haskell

Whatever makes a man a beast also renders him pitiable. But it behoves us to be wary of these bestial men despite our compassion, for they frequently turn on their friends.

~ Maria Mccann

If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,'' returned the Ghost, will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.''Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.Man,'' said the Ghost, if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!

~ Charles Dickens

Be careful that you do not misjudge or underestimate this man. He is more than he seems and less than you imagine. He is in pain. That pain, however, is always on the very edge of rage. Use your heart, use your gift to listen and to hear the nature of this man's heart, and save him if you can, rather than destroy him.

~ Mina Marial Nicoli

There is nothing in nature which approximates to the idea of a hospice.

~ Jim Crumley

People will come to test and divide us, but, as long as we keep compassion in our hearts for others, they won't win.

~ Stewart Stafford

Why study what the world thinks? I believe this practice will actually make us more gracious and merciful. Engaged in interactions with worldlings, we are likely to see each person and each situation individually and to allow them to infuriate us. But, stepping back to see the world's pattern of thought rather than a particular instance in which we are wronged, we can gain perspective. By seeing this lost person's dealings as another example of blindness to Your Truth and of what Paul calls vain imaginations, we are more likely to turn our assertiveness to prayer rather than maneuvering for human advantage.

~ Brian Eshleman

Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place whey are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. As busy, active, relevant ministers, we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference. And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer.

~ Henri J.m. Nouwen

When your love has conquered your desire for possession and lust, this love then, turns into a compassionate energy, that crosses all bars of distance and time, and touches the one you love, in ways never understood but just felt.So whether, in acceptance or in rejection, keep feeding love more love. And always believe the one you love can never remain untouched by it.

~ Wordions

There is a defect in usas human beingsbecause we think ourselvesa fortress, a mountain, unbreakablebut at the centerin that stillness of beingthere is a chasmof lovewhich echoes hope, compassion, empathytry again, it saysand though the fault lines are full of darknesswe are held together bythe optimism and foolishness of a single spark

~ Nadia Hasan

Feeling compassion toward a dangerous person will not lead you to submit to them or put yourself at risk or condone their actions. What it does simply, is relieve your anxiety – which immediately makes you stronger and more resilient.

~ Laurie Perez