c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
[P]eople think of compassion as, like, kindness. The image comes to mind of some nice New Age guy bending to something with a look on his face like he’s about to cry. And I don’t think that’s it. I think of it more as a quality of openness that comes with being in a state of unusual attentiveness.
— George Saunders
The best way we can honor the pioneers—the best way for us to repay our debt of gratitude to them—goes beyond making and hearing speeches, marching in parades, or attending fireworks celebrations.  “The best way we can show our gratitude is by incorporating into our own lives the faithfulness to God’s commandments, the compassion and love for our fellowmen, the industry, optimism, and joy the pioneers demonstrated so well in their own lives.
— President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Ask the poor. They'll tell you who the christians are.
— Mahatma Gandhi
Through Compassion and Care we are compelled to random acts of kindness and demonstrations of love.
— Jean Hamilton-Fford, Play.Create.Succeed.
Compassion is the way you live your life every day.
— Jeffrey A.  White
To please God, live a godly life and nurture kindness, compassion, justice, and humility.
— Jim George
And in blessing himI was blessed,And in comforting himI was comforted…
— Jessica Coupé, Daystar Rising: A Story of the First Christmas
Compassion is a verb...It is the way you live your life every day.
— Jeffrey A.  White
The fact is, it is selfish for a church to not want to grow. A church that says, “We’ve got enough people, we’ve got a nice fellowship. Our church is just the right size. We just need to focus on the members we already have.” That church is, in reality, actually saying, “The rest of the world can go to hell. We don’t care.
— Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?
I live by three simple words: compassion, love and gratitude. We need to act on these three words daily. Doing so will irrevocably change your world.
— Julian Pencilliah
If you want to help someone move on, you don’t label people as good, bad, worst or best. This categorizes people, rather than experiences with that person. People are not all evil or all good. You don’t teach compassion by categorizing people. Empathy and honest open communication are the only way to live your life. If you’re blaming someone then you haven’t let go of your pain long enough to really try on theirs. However, if you must believe that the only type of person that brings you difficult lessons or experiences in life are those that are bad or worse, then take the time to read the bible a little closer. Christ, put a few people in their place, in order to make point.
— Shannon L. Alder
In order to master compassion, you have to spend time getting to know monsters. When you can do that you will see that there are no monsters, only people that acted like monsters because no one gave them the time or compassion to hear their story.
— Shannon L. Alder
If you’re treating people poorly then you're not emulating God’s love. God always resides with the broken hearted.
— Shannon L. Alder
It is a strange thing that the human species can only go three days without water and three weeks without food, before the body dies. Yet, so many people can go years hanging onto pain and feeling emotionally dead inside. I suppose if it was the other way around more people would go to school to be morticians because of the booming business, or pastors would have to hand out Valium with the sacrament, just to keep the census high.
— Shannon L. Alder
As a kid my heart would break for the villains.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
What has she done to deserve such scorn?' I said. He had the grace to look uncomfortable as he answered. 'Not her in particular, miss,' he said, 'Just her sort. People like her in general, I mean.''Oh Harry,' I said, 'there is no such thing as people in general. Everyone is someone very particular.
— Catriona McPherson, Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains
He never spoke with any bitterness at all, no matter how awful the things he said. Are there really people without resentment, without hate, she wondered. People who never go cross-grained to the universe? Who recognize evil, and resist evil, and yet are utterly unaffected by it? Of course there are. Countless, the living and the dead. Those who have returned in pure compassion to the wheel, those who follow the way that cannot be followed without knowing they follow it, the sharecropper's wife in Alabama and the lama in Tibet and the entomologist in Peru and the millworker in Odessa and the greengrocer in London and the goatherd in Nigeria and the old, old man sharpening a stick by a dry streambed somewhere in Australia, and all the others. There is not one of us who has not known them. There are enough of them, enough to keep us going. Perhaps.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
Compassion, however, should mean providing a mechanism to escape poverty rather than simply maintaining people in an impoverished state by supplying handouts. By doing this we give them an opportunity to elevate their personal situations, which eventually decreases our need to take care of them and empowers them to be able to exercise compassion toward others.
— Ben Carson, One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America's Future
The poor young man must work for his bread; he eats; when he has eaten, he has nothing left but reverie. He enters God's theater free; he sees the sky, space, the stars, the flowers, the children, the humanity in which he suffers, the creation in which he shines. He looks at humanity so much that he sees the soul, he looks at creation so much that he sees God. He dreams, he feels that he is great; he dreams some more, and he feels that he is tender. From the egotism of the suffering man, he passes to the compassion of the contemplating man. A wonderful feeling springs up within him, forgetfulness of self, and pity for all. In thinking of the countless enjoyments nature offers, gives, and gives lavishly to open souls and refuses to closed souls, he, a millionaire of intelligence, comes to grieve for the millionaires of money. All hatred leaves his heart as all light enters his mind. And is he unhappy? No. The poverty of a young man is never miserable.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
We are nourished by our relationships and generosity in return to our kindness and compassion for others.
— Gyalwa Dokhampa, The Restful Mind
Then, as now, there would always be people who preferred the option of devoting their religious energies to sacred space over the more difficult duty of compassion.
— Karen Armstrong, Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths
The mind will enchain yourself, others or both. Your heart will set you / them free
— Rasheed Ogunlaru
You can unlock spiritual things only from within.
— Richard Rohr, Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation
Life is an endless sea of admiration, in constant collision with those who have aspired, to feel inspired once again.
— James C. Emlund
Compassion is not prevention of all negative certainty, it is a home floating on the sea of fear, that equally brings assistance to those sinking.
— James C. Emlund
It is true that the church must be in many places and with many people, but it is the poor who will reveal to the church—dramatically and poignantly—the nature of its heart and mission.
— Gary Smith, Radical Compassion: Finding Christ in the Heart of the Poor
Everyone is always doing as well as they can within their personal limitations, their personal history, what they know and don't know and what they're feeling in that moment. If they could make a healthier decision, they would. This includes you.
— Carl Alasko, Say This, Not That: A Foolproof Guide to Effective Interpersonal Communication
The opacity of the mind, its inability to project itself into the realm of another's personality, goes a long way to explain the friction of life. If we would set down other people's errors to this rather than to malice prepense we should not only get more good out of life and feel more kindly toward our fellows, but doubtless the rectitude of our intellects would increase, and the justice of our judgments...we are so shut away from one another that none tells those about him what he considers ideal treatment on their part toward him...nothing will probe to the core of this greatest disadvantage under which we labor--that is, mutual noncomprehension--except a basis of society and government which would make it easy for each to put himself in another's place because his place is so much like another's...we [would] need less imagination in order to do that which is just and kind to every one about us.
— Frances E. Willard, How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle: Reflections of an Influential 19th Century Woman
Inherent in all persons does be,Love and compassion unfailingly.Give to others your love freely,And receive in turn love purely.[112]	- 4
— Munindra Misra, Eddies of Life
2.27 THE ULTIMATEWith compassion and renunciation walking,With wants and desires ever shedding,With love within one’s heart flowing,Peace and Divinity shall never be wanting.[158]	- 2
— Munindra Misra, Eddies of Life
A body without compassion is like the rose without the scent.
— Ansul Noor
No one can hurt you without teaching a life's lesson. So accept it with love and kindness.
— Debasish Mridha
People who don’t know how to use their minds can’t really know how to use their hearts either.
— Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset: An Unconventional Guide to Healing and Happiness
There is no such thing as tough love. Love is kind, love is compassionate, love is tender.
— Heather Wolf, Kipnuk the Talking Dog
Kindness is like a warm blanket of snow, softly covering and gently touching the heart.
— Heather Wolf, A Snowy Day
And Sir, it is no little thing to make mine eyes to sweat compassion.
— William Shakespeare, Coriolanus
Why, we are just the same - I am only a little girl like you. It's just an accident that I am not you, and you are not me!
— Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess
If you haven't walked in someone else's shoes, it's difficult to know the fit, so be kind and compassionate.
— Heather Wolf, The Long Spring
Everything is unfolding based on causes and conditions. Our happiness or suffering is dependent on how we relate to the present moment. If we cling now, we suffer later. If we let go and respond with compassion or friendliness, we create happiness and well-being for the future.
— Noah Levine, Against the Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries
My friend is my friend, even if he wears rag, even if he wasn't born with a silver spoon, even if nobody wants to be his friend, i will hurt his critics by remaining his friend.
— Michael Bassey Johnson
By serving humanity, I automatically serve myself.
— Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset: An Unconventional Guide to Healing and Happiness
When we can see our own self, angry and hurting others, within every villain, then we can love. When we can see our own desperate struggle for belonging in the eyes of every enemy, then we can love. When we can look at the greatest of atrocities and see the opportunity for healing within, then, and only then, can we really love.
— Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset: An Unconventional Guide to Healing and Happiness
You can't rely on how you look to sustain you, what sustains us, what is fundamentally beautiful is compassion; for yourself and for those around you.
— Lupita Nyong'o
The judge speaks in the name of justice,' he said. 'The priest speaks in the name of pity, which is only a higher form of justice.' (Bishop Myriel)
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
To us children he (Mr Ewing) was our very own ‘Mr Chips’ and invariably we would each receive half a crown whenever we encountered him on his afternoon walk. If we were particularly lucky, he would send us to the ‘Big House’ for ice-cream – a rare treat in the early 1950s
— Bill     Scott
We enjoy observing kindness and compassion in others
—  while we act as evils.
The sparkle and morning-freshness of the shop, and the butter-conjuring girl, formed a mind-picture which accompanied the whole of my youth.(about the Buttercup Dairy)
— Muriel Spark, Curriculum Vitae: Autobiography
Exercise the muscles that compassionately open the heart.In your writing and your life.
— Dinty W. Moore, The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life
A joke is never a joke if it is at the expense of another person's feelings
— Heather Wolf
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, Faith Postures: Cultivating Christian Mindfulness
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, Making Wishes
The problem, unstated until now, is how to live in a damaged body in a world where pain is meant to be gagged uncured ungrieved over. The problem is to connect, without hysteria, the pain of anyone's body with the pain of the world's body.
— Adrienne Rich
All pursuits are pointless and fruitless unless and until love and compassion are found and then are the foundation and destination of all you do
— Rasheed Ogunlaru
We have the power to improve our work lives immeasurably through awareness, compassion, patience & ingenuity.
— Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace
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, The New Stations of the Cross: The Way of the Cross According to Scripture
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, Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace
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 Lights of Penitence, the Moral Principles, Lights of Holiness, Essays, Letters and Poems
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, The New Stations of the Cross: The Way of the Cross According to Scripture
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 New Stations of the Cross: The Way of the Cross According to Scripture
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, Det syvende barn
Meditation is not about what's happening, it is about how we're relating to what's happening.
— Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace
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, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life
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, The Way of the Heart: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers
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, With Everything I Am
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, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky
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, Making Wishes
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, Unbound Intelligence: A Personal Guide to Self-Discovery
Kindness is still the best antidote.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Making Wishes
Mindfulness helps us to set boundaries by revealing what makes us unhappy & what brings us peace.
— Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace
We deny the same love to others that we deny ourselves. We distort others in the same way we distort ourselves.
— Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset: An Unconventional Guide to Healing and Happiness
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, The Flight of the Garuda: The Dzogchen Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism
Being happy at work is possible for all of us, anytime & anywhere, with open eyes and a caring heart
— Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace
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, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
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, Totally Secure: Finding Peace and Protection in the Arms of God
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, Swann's Way
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, The Art of HealingArt: The Keys to Power and Awareness
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, Divine Healing Made Simple: Simplifying the supernatural to make healing & miracles a part of your everyday life
When we look into the eyes of others with compassion, our personal biases suddenly begin to fade away. Then, we can see others for what they truly are, Human.
— Rob Pinell
Distraction wastes our energy, concentration restores it.
— Sharon Salzberg
When we experience dissatisfaction at work, which everyone does we can use our disappointment as fuel to wake up.
— Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace
You will have the ability to see other people accurately as divine, amazing, irreplaceable, human beings in the process, just like you. You will have the ability to forgive them and live in wisdom and compassion. You can do this because all of these qualities are in you. In fact, they are who you really are.
— Kimberly Giles, Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness
Who doesn't want to know that we notice them and value them? And who might respond to us better when they feel that they matter? It probably cannot be overstated – it matters...that people matter.
— Steve Goodier
People said things to me like "They're just animals. They're here for our use." I had a visceral reaction to that phrase, maybe because I was told countless times during my growing-up years that I was "just like an animal." I had suffered much of my life because I was considered less than human. Animals were suffering because they were less than human. And it seemed to me that human didn't have much to be proud of, if they treated other living things with such blind cruelty.
— Elizabeth Kim, Ten Thousand Sorrows : The Extraordinary Journey of a Korean War Orphan
Strange that only a little problem of your own will take your mind far from a tragedy belonging to others.
— Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley
Laziness is not particularly terrible or wonderful. Rather it has a basic living quality that deserves to be experienced just as it is. Perhaps we’ll find an irritating, pulsating quality in laziness. We might feel it as dull and heavy or as vulnerable and raw. Whatever we discover, as we explore it further, we find nothing to hold on to, nothing solid, only groundless, wakeful energy. This process of experiencing laziness directly and nonverbally is transformative. It unlocks a tremendous energy that is usually blocked by our habit of running away. This is because when we stop resisting laziness, our identity as the one who is lazy begins to fall apart completely. Without the blinders of ego, we connect with a fresh outlook, a greater vision. This is how laziness—or any other demon—introduces us to the compassionate life.
— Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times
The three jewels of Tao: compassion, moderation, and humility. Balthasar said compassion leads to courage, moderation leads to generosity, and humility leads to leadership.
— Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
The experience of humanism is that 'nothing human is alien to me'
—  that I carry within myself all of humanity
The path of compassion does not obligate you to love people regardless of how they act or who they are. It is a path of seeing the truth of who people are, acknowledging all their parts, their humanness as well as divinity. It is the path of looking at people and asking, "is there anything I can do to heal, assist, or bring them in touch with their higher vision?" If there is not, then you are pulling down your own energy by spending time with them".
— Sanaya Roman, Living with Joy: Keys to Personal Power and Spiritual Transformation
Honesty, vulnerability and a good amount of courageous faith allows you to cry out in your bewilderment and not lose your belief in the process. These things allow you to wrestle your faith rather than lose it.
— Bono
Help people help themselves. Don’t judge, just help. In this process, be cautious to simply point them in the right direction and help them get moving. Don’t make your journey theirs, nor make their journey yours.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
David was "a star, the Elvis of the Bible." An unusually for such a rockstar with his lust for power, lust for women, lust for life, he had humility of one who knew his gift work harder than he ever would.
— Bono
For a practitioner of love and compassion, an enemy is one of the most important teachers. Without an enemy you cannot practice tolerance, and without tolerance you cannon build a sound basis of compassion. So in order to practice compassion, you should have an enemy.When you face your enemy who is going to hurt you, that is the real time to practice tolerance. Therefore, an enemy is the cause of the practice of tolerance; tolerance is the effect or result of an enemy. So those are cause and effect. As is said, "Once something has the relationship of arising from that thing, one cannot consider that thing from which it arises as a harmer; rather it assists the production of the effect.
— Śāntideva
When bad things happen or you don't get your own way, if you can open your heart to compassion instead of shunting it down in anger, you're going to create more light.
— Barrie Dolnick
We should never let another person get under our skin to the point that we feel hate for them
— Daniel Willey
For once the crofter was at a a rather loss for words, for to him nothing has ever been more completely unintelligible than the reasoning that is bred of tears.
— Halldór Laxness, Independent People
Enlightenment seems paradoxical but all it needs is compassion
— Priyanka Deshmukh
Life is so much better when your passion and calling line up. You understand the gift of your spiritual inheritance, assume responsibility for right and just choices, and you pour your signature presence into serving others.
— Gloria Burgess, Dare to Wear Your Soul on the Outside: Live Your Legacy Now
It is hard to draw any line between compassion and love.
— Arthur C. Clarke, The Deep Range
Believe not the existence of an emotion nobler than the compassion!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
Each of us has a call on our lives. This call says, ‘It’s time to get your act together, then take it on the road.’ This call says, ‘Put on your traveling shoes so that you can be of use to others... so that you can wear your soul on the outside, light the way for others, and pass it on.
— Gloria Burgess, Dare to Wear Your Soul on the Outside: Live Your Legacy Now
It is a hard lesson to learn and a lesson we most of us need to learn at some point: We cannot assume to know a person's history from their face.
— Na'ama Yehuda, Outlawed Hope
That is the most godlike feeling a human can experience
—  being ignored by rebellious child.
Night becomes day only when the sun appears
—  dark man becomes good man only when the compassion appears!
The one thing in me more powerful than a general misanthropy is an inescapable compassion for individuals.
— Jasper Sole
We have come to a point in time where using common sense, speaking factual truths and asking honest questions have been deemed radical behavior. While in turn, manipulation, thoughtlessness and dishonesty is often rewarded and rules the day.
— Gary   Hopkins
Nothing is wrong with her that is dangerous or harmful. She just feels deeper than others
— Abbi Glines, Existence
If You KnewWhat if you knew you'd be the lastto touch someone?If you were taking tickets, for example,at the theater, tearing them,giving back the ragged stubs,you might take care to touch that palmbrush your fingertipsalong the lifeline's crease.When a man pulls his wheeled suitcasetoo slowly through the airport, whenthe car in front of me doesn't signal,when the clerk at the pharmacywon't say thank you, I don't rememberthey're going to die.A friend told me she'd been with her aunt.They'd just had lunch and the waiter,a young gay man with plum black eyes,joked as he served the coffee, kissedher aunt's powdered cheek when they left.Then they walked half a block and her auntdropped dead on the sidewalk.How close does the dragon's spumehave to come? How wide does the crackin heaven have to split?What would people look likeif we could see them as they are,soaked in honey, stung and swollen,reckless, pinned against time?
— Ellen Bass, The Human Line
Why must you know the details of my troubles to have compassion? Is it not enough to show compassion simply because you know that everyone has troubles?
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Making Wishes
When you see a person acting violently, ask yourself whether he knows how powerful he is. If he knew his power, would he feel the need to assert it?
— Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset: An Unconventional Guide to Healing and Happiness
Though your acts of love and compassion cannot penetrate bandages or armour, they are never wasted and never lost. They sit within the recipient’s mind, awaiting his awakening.
— Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset: An Unconventional Guide to Healing and Happiness
Our primary health care should begin on the farm and in our hearts, and not in some laboratory of the biotech and pharmaceutical companies.
— Gary   Hopkins
Once you understand love, you don’t need a reward your kindness or compassion just like you don’t need a reward for breathing.
— Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset: An Unconventional Guide to Healing and Happiness
If ye realize the Emptiness of All Things, Compassion will raise within your heart;If ye lose all differentiation between yourselves and others, fit to serve others ye will be;And when in serving others ye shall win success, then shall ye meet with me;And finding me, ye shall attain to Buddhahood.
— Milarepa, Songs of Milarepa
If there were no goodness in people, mankind would still be confined to loping across a Savannah somewhere on Earth, watching the elephants rule, or some other more compassionate species.
— Orson Scott Card, The Worthing Saga
In the world of so-called villains, what we need is not another hero. What we need is to stop the influx of people who dress themselves as menaces and proceed to harm others.
— Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset: An Unconventional Guide to Healing and Happiness
I was in awe of the mystery of human compassion and the inability of love to make the distance between us any more bearable.
— Keith Hollihan, The Four Stages of Cruelty: A Novel
Don’t pass along the beliefs and actions you disapprove of to your children. Loving-kindness is potent even when displayed during the so-called mundane tasks of daily existence. It’s so potent that if everyone could get into that mindset for a minute or even less, they would blast into a great ball of light. Even the newest (smallest) energies would blast through,”-Kuan Yin (from "Oracle of Compassion: the Living Word of Kuan Yin")
— Hope Bradford, Oracle of Compassion: The Living Word of Kuan Yin
It is only once you see the baffled expression on the face of your enemy when you give his cruel words a warm smile that you’ll understand, truly understand, what love is all about.
— Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset: An Unconventional Guide to Healing and Happiness
Take off that coat,' he told him.'Sir?''You heard me.'The boy slipped out of his jacket, whining, 'What you gonna do? What I'm gonna wear?'The man untied the baby from her chest and wrapped it in the boy's coat, knotting the sleeves in front.'What I'm gonna wear?'The old man sighed and, after a pause, said, 'You want it back then go head and take it off that baby. Put the baby naked in the grass and put your coat back on. And if you can do it, then go on 'way somewhere and don't come back.
— Toni Morrison, Beloved
Modern sovereignty, whether expressed through killing in battle or the torture of suspects, brings together the desire to build up and the desire to destroy, to let Aid Agencies offer charity (in its original meaning of "love") while the military offers death. The two are intrinsically connected.
— Talal Asad
Be a gift, a light, a blessing as far as the eye can see to answer a call as well as a genuine, compassionate heart can reach.
— Angelica Hopes
Some energies are not as potent. The only way to develop a potent energy is to spend an existence on the earth. There, one can develop a compassionate nature so that when passing onto other dimensions, one can be of help. When one leaves one’s earth body one will need to fully understand compassion to be helpful, effective. On earth, you are encapsulated in flesh...No soul is forced into an assignment upon the earth. Instead they go to their ‘rightful space’. When you leave the earth you have a lot more power. It won’t be ego-based power. Rather it will be beyond ego, beyond good and evil. In fact, ‘evil’ is just a label as everything is intermixed. The pendulum just appears to swing back and forth.”..."Kuan Yin is showing me a person running with sandbags. She’s telling me that when the person finally lets-go of the sandbags, she or he is faster, stronger. Oh. I get it! That’s what the earth existence is like. In many ways living on earth is an ‘artificial’ burden. Once one is free of one’s body, they are not only lighter but also stronger, more powerful. I’m reminded of a time when I was a child. I felt so limited. I remember thinking, ‘Why can’t I just be wherever I want to be and physically not have to walk or use transportation? Why do I have to physically cross the street?’”-Lena Lees
— Hope Bradford, Oracle of Compassion: The Living Word of Kuan Yin
Not only in antiquity but in our own times also laws have been passed...to secure good conditions for workers; so it is right that the art of medicine should contribute its portion for the benefit and relief of those for whom the law has shown such foresight...[We] ought to show peculiar zeal...in taking precautions for their safety. I for one have done all that lay in my power, and have not thought it beneath me to step into workshops of the meaner sort now and again and study the obscure operations of mechanical arts.
— Bernardino Ramazzini
Do not waste your pity on a scamp.
— Aesop, Aesop's Fables
Whisper sweetly the tenderness of the moment. Let the love teach you the true meaning and passion of this experience we share. With gratitude and reverence for the blessings and miracles I receive and witness, my heart still beats as the little things die to be reborn with a greater joy for life in each moment.
— Jennifer Hillman
In the evangelical world, prying can be an indicator of compassion.
— Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University
Whenever you feel insignificant,remember that you can makea significant differencein the lives of others,particularly the less fortunate.
— Jeffrey A.  White, A Blueness I Could Eat Forever
Christ's version of kindness: I know you are hurt. I contributed to that. Maybe, I should have said more. Done more. Listened. I am sorry for my part in the situation. I am sorry if I caused you any pain or confused you with my actions or words. How can I help you move on? I want you to have peace in your life. Let's end this by communicating.The world's perverted version of kindness: You caused your own pain. You get what you get. Get over it and move on. Maybe, one day you will figure out what happiness really means. By the way, I am not responsible for giving it to you. Nor, do I have to put up with people that don't bring me joy or who I can't trust. I am only responsible for myself. I will pray for you because I am a good Christian.
— Shannon L. Alder
He who fights is powerless, but he who loves is power itself.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
There is no force in the world better able to alter anything from its course than love.
— Gregory J. Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
From looking at your neighbor and realizing his true significance, and that he will die, pity and compassion will arise in you for him and finally you will love him.
— G.I. Gurdjieff
The fearful seek to serve themselves by mastering the world, while the fearless seek to serve the world by mastering themselves.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
When you shall have learned to know, and to love, you will still suffer. The day is born in tears. The luminous weep, if only over those in darkness.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
It doesn't matter how you conceive of divinity. It only matters that you see it in everything, including yourself.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
Our treatment of animals, in every department, is deeply and systematically immoral. Becoming a vegetarian is only the most minimal ethical response to the magnitude of the evil.
— Colin McGinn
The sacred stillness of your brilliant hearthas as the myriad wonders masqueraded.But if you knew this secret from the start,then you'd have quit this Game before you played it.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal, A Light from the Shadows: Reflections on Oneness, Identity, and the Creation of Experience
Three of the ten principles governing the City of Joy are (a) tell the truth, (b) stop waiting to be rescued, and (c) give away what you want the most.
— Eve Ensler, In the Body of the World
There are people who have the capacity to imagine themselves as someone else, there are people who have no such capacity (when the lack is extreme, we call them psychopaths), and there are people who have the capacity but choose not to exercise it.
— J.M. Coetzee, The Lives of Animals
Ayurveda teaches us to love "as is" - not as we think people "should be.
— Lissa Coffey
Forgiveness that is insincere, forced or premature can be more psychologically damaging than authentic bitterness & rage.
— Sharon Salzberg, Love Your Enemies: How to Break the Anger Habit & Be a Whole Lot Happier
I see the good in the world because I choose to. I don't imagine that it's there
—  it's there waiting to be noticed.
If only this great concern we have for our own sensitive feelings expanded to encompass the feelings of our fellow men.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
Compassion: a robust dance between grace and wisdom.
— Soul Dancer, Pay Me What I'm Worth
Now, are those engaged in the business of governing any different by nature from those they govern?""Yes. They're prideful and tend to sexual misconduct. Also, the situation of being in government tends to drive you mad.""But are they more virtuous or more intelligent? Or more compassionate?""Ha!""Let's call that one a 'no.
— Nick Harkaway, The Gone-Away World
The author reveals a cultural change that took place when clergy were paid based on a tax on the land's value rather than what it produced. This meant that, while parishioners could suffer through a terrible year, clergy would always have a comfortable one.
— Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life
He is a principled man, and compassionate, someone who will remind himself of your best qualities while struggling to forgive your worst. In short, he is a friend.
— Tracy Guzeman, The Gravity of Birds
Man without compassion is the coldest thing ever in this universe!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
To sense which gifts to accept & which to leave behind is our path to discovering freedom.
— Sharon Salzberg, Love Your Enemies: How to Break the Anger Habit & Be a Whole Lot Happier
Much less than a man, a little bit more than a jackal! This is the person without compassion!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
If I could give one message to the bullied, it would be this: You are not alone. You are strong. You have a voice. You are beautiful. You are intelligent. There are many kids who want to speak up for you, but they don’t because they are afraid of becoming bullied themselves. There are many of us in the world who love you. I love you. You have the power to end this now. That power is in your voice. Find it. Once you use your voice, bullies want no part of you. If you feel that you lack the courage, fake it until you do. Finally, I know it’s hard to see a life that exists beyond high school. It is there, and it is beautiful.
— Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing
Don't hate the bullies. Experience tells me that hating them, or being angry with them, will always make it worse. Instead, put your arm around them. Love them. Tell them that they are valuable. Tell them that you expect great things from them. They will stop the bullying. They will stop, because they will start to love themselves. And people who love themselves don’t bully others.
— Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing
Just because she isn't human, do you think that means she doesn't feel pain?
— Stephenie Meyer, The Host
If someone is facing a difficult time, one of the kindest things you can do for him or her is to say, “I’m just going to love you through this.
— Molly Friedenfeld, The Book of Simple Human Truths
After all I've seen, if I hadn't learned compassion, I wouldn't be worth much.
— Stephenie Meyer, The Host
When we involve others in spontaneous acts of kindness, we go from being strangers to becoming a united team connected at the heart level.
— Molly Friedenfeld, The Book of Simple Human Truths
The pain on the inside is what keeps you human,' she said. 'Never forget that.
— Taylor Stevens, The Doll
The political vision of the religious right is for the most part an individualistic politics of righteousness, not a communal politics of compassion.
— Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith
Having a vested interest in other souls unconditionally creates a ripple effect that produces miracles in the lives of those around us.
— Molly Friedenfeld, The Book of Simple Human Truths
Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.
— Albert Schweitzer
Society reaps what it sows in the way it nurtures its children, because stress sculpts the brain to exhibit several antisocial behaviors. Stress can set off a ripple of hormonal changes that permanently wire a child's brain to cope with a malevolent world. Through this chain of events, violence and abuse pass from generation to generation as well as from one society to the next. Many world leaders who have been disciplined through anger and cruelty go in to treat their own people abominably, or to bully other nations. As long as we continue to discipline children like this, we will continue to have terrible wars on both the family and the world stage. One very powerful study illustrates the point. Researchers tracked down Germans who, in World War II, risked their own lives by hiding a Jewish person in their house. When interviewed, the researchers found one common feature of all these people. They had all been socialized in ways that respected their personal dignity.
— Margot Sunderland, The Science of Parenting
When emotions turn and stay sour, when thoughts become cynical and judgmental, good and compassionate treatment is on the line. Helpers who become sour and cynical tend to begrudge their high need clients for their neediness. There is a risk that helpers become too well-practiced at taking a bleak view of those they have avowed to assist. There is a temptation to begin to blame clients for their failure to improve. If treatment ends pre-maturely, with either a client never returning to treatment or a helper 'firing' them out of frustration, there is a tendency for the client to take the fall. Of course what we are talking about here are signs of burnout.
— Scott E. Spradlin
Do be careful. I can't replace you as easily as all that.
— Rachel Caine, Bite Club
Is it a small thing to quench the flames of hell with the holy tears of pity -- to unbind the martyr from the stake -- break all the chains -- put out the fires of civil war -- stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear the bloody hands of the Church from the white throat of Science? Is it a small thing to make men truly free -- to destroy the dogmas of ignorance, prejudice and power -- the poisoned fables of superstition, and drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of fear?
— Robert G. Ingersoll
Dear God, give bread to those who are hungry and a hunger and thirst for justice to those who have plenty. Amen.
— Benedictine prayer
A person can put up any kind of protective wall, but love and truth always find a way around it.
— Molly Friedenfeld, The Book of Simple Human Truths
If you have nothing but compassion, you are still very wealthy; if you have everything but compassion, you are still very poor!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
If I could give one message to the bullies, it would be this: You are incredible. You are bound for great things. You have the potential to be anybody you want to be. There are people who believe in you. There are people who love you. Be what we know you can be, even if you don’t believe in yourself right now.
— Dan Pearce