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 crowns the soul with its truest victory.
ABERJHANI
The River of Winged Dreams
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
There is no small kindness; every compassionate act makes large the world.
MARY ANNE RADMACHER
Live with Intention: Rediscovering What We Deeply Know
A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.
STEVE MARABOLI
Life
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
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 a mixed passion, composed of love and sorrow.
NOAH WEBSTER
An American Dictionary
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
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
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
DALAI LAMA XIV
The Art of Happiness
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
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
Most women bestow their favors upon men, not from Passion, but from Compassion.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
There's no prescription that's sold
That can heal you like compassion
TODD RUNDGREN
"Compassion"
When we know ourselves to be connected to all others, acting compassionately is simply the natural thing to do.
RACHEL NAOMI REMEN
The Heart of Learning
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
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