c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Whatever it was that people experience in Jesus has today come to be identified with medieval doctrines based on premodern assumptions that are no longer believable. That identification means that serious theological discussion seems to accomplish little more than to erect a division between the shouters and the disinterested. Jesus becomes the captive of the hysterically religious, the chronically fearful, the insecure and even the neurotic among us, or he becomes little more than a fading memory, the symbol of an age that is no more and a nostalgic reminder of our believing past. To me neither option is worth pursuing. Yet even understanding these things, I am still attracted to this Jesus and I will pursue him both relentlessly and passionately. I will not surrender the truth I believe I find in him either to those who seek to defend the indefensible or to those who want to be freed finally from premodern ideas that no longer make any sense.
— John Shelby Spong
Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of KNOWING Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.
— Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
Jesus was a suicide, if you ask me.
— Marsha Norman, 'night, Mother
But without wisdom, imagination is like a cruel taskmaster.
— William Paul Young
I don’t really think the standard of judgment, the missing link, you spoke of that you find in my stories emerges from any religion but Christianity, because it concerns specifically Christ and the Incarnation, the fact that there has been a unique intervention in history. It’s not a matter in these stories of Do Unto Others. That can be found in any ethical cultural series. It is the fact of the Word made flesh.
— Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor
The problem then with Jesus is that he cannot be removed from his time and transplanted into our own without simply creating him anew
— Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth
Faith should be a tool to set us free, not a means to fuel a fascist agenda seeking to impede the civil liberties of the "us"s. The first shall be last and the last shall be first... therefore, those who stand for their Pius self-righteousness in order to trample those they deem inferior will be the 'last' and the poor and oppressed shall be 'first.' If the self-righteous want a lesson on morality, then actually take a lesson from Jesus whose best friend was a former hooker and whose mother was a single parent.
— Cristina Marrero
Find your place in life, and GROW!
— Anita R. Sneed-Carter
If your fundamental is a man dying on the cross for his enemies, if the very heart of your self-image and your religion is a man praying for his enemies as he died for them, sacrificing for them, loving them - if that sinks into your heart of hearts, it's going to produce the kind of life that the early Christians produced. The most inclusive possible life out of the most exclusive possible claim - and that is this is the truth. But what is the truth? The truth is a God become weak, loving and dying for the people who opposed him, dying forgiving them.
— Timothy J. Keller
‎"The more we spend our time 'practicing the presence' of Jesus, the more we become like Him"~ R. Alan Woods
— R. Alan Woods
It's so much more than a child's story. - Matt Chandler on LIFE Today.
— Matt      Chandler
Take no stock in saying, "never", because it carries no guarantee.
— Anita R. Sneed-Carter
We were seekers. You are that which is sought, Joshua. You are the source. The end is divinity, in the beginning is the word. You are the word.
— Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
When Jesus said “Whoever eats my flesh & drinks my blood has eternal life” John 6:54 He was CLEARLY talking to Zombies & Vampires
— Pablo
You have DIED to doing things your own way. You can only LIVE again as you take up your cross, daily, and follow Jesus. - THE PRODIGAL LIFE
— Pauline Creeden
When you bring all your doubts and fears to God, you’ll find the reason to trust Him. And as you trust Him, you will draw closer to Him. Best of all, no one who draws closer to God can possibly remain unchanged.
— Pauline Creeden
Christians risk becoming utterly irrelevant in their own culture if they continue to seperate people into "We the Saved" and "They the Damned". Again, I ask, do we need Jesus to protect us from God? Is that what Christianity as we've known is about? Are we saved from God by God?
— Carlton D. Pearson, God Is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu...: God Dwells with Us, in Us, Around Us, as Us
Fruit is always the miraculous, the created; it is never the result of willing, but always a growth. The fruit of the Spirit is a gift of God, and only He can produce it. They who bear it know as little about it as the tree knows of its fruit. They know only the power of Him on whom their life depends
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Following Jesus isn’t something you can do at night where no one notices. It’s a twenty-four-hour-a-day commitment that will interfere with your life. That’s not the small print—that’s a guarantee.
— Kyle Idleman
We will never be cleansed until we confess we are dirty. And we will never be able to wash the feet of those who have hurt us until we allow Jesus, the one we have hurt, to wash ours.
— Max Lucado, 3:16: The Numbers of Hope
God draws near to the brokenhearted. He leans toward those who are suffering. He knows what it feels like to be wounded and abandoned.
— John D.  Richardson
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' These men without possessions or power, these strangers on Earth, these sinners, these followers of Jesus, have in their life with him renounced their own dignity, for they are merciful. As if their own needs and their own distress were not enough, they take upon themselves the distress and humiliation of others. They have an irresistible love for the down-trodden, the sick, the wretched, the wronged, the outcast and all who are tortured with anxiety. They go out and seek all who are enmeshed in the toils of sin and guilt. No distress is too great, no sin too appalling for their pity. If any man falls into disgrace, the merciful will sacrifice their own honour to shield him, and take his shame upon themselves.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Here at our ministry we refuse to present a picture of “gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” a portrait that tugs at your sentiments or pulls at your heartstrings. That’s because we deal with so many people who suffer, and when you’re hurting hard, you’re neither helped nor inspired by a syrupy picture of the Lord, like those sugary, sentimental images many of us grew up with. You know what I mean? Jesus with His hair parted down the middle, surrounded by cherubic children and bluebirds.Come on. Admit it: When your heart is being wrung out like a sponge, when you feel like Morton’s salt is being poured into your wounded soul, you don’t want a thin, pale, emotional Jesus who relates only to lambs and birds and babies.You want a warrior Jesus.You want a battlefield Jesus. You want his rigorous and robust gospel to command your sensibilities to stand at attention.To be honest, many of the sentimental hymns and gospel songs of our heritage don’t do much to hone that image. One of the favorite words of hymn writers in days gone by was sweet. It’s a term that down’t have the edge on it that it once did. When you’re in a dark place, when lions surround you, when you need strong help to rescue you from impossibility, you don’t want “sweet.” You don’t want faded pastels and honeyed softness.You want mighty. You want the strong arm an unshakable grip of God who will not let you go — no matter what.
— Joni Eareckson Tada, A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God's Sovereignty
The earthly form of Christ is the form that died on the cross. The image of God is the image of Christ crucified. It is to this image that the life of the disciples must be conformed; in other words, they must be conformed to his death (Phil 3.10, Rom 6.4) The Christian life is a life of crucifixion (Gal 2.19) In baptism the form of Christ's death is impressed upon his own. They are dead to the flesh and to sin, they are dead to the world, and the world is dead to them (Gal 6.14). Anybody living in the strength of Christ's baptism lives in the strength of Christ's death.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Pilate's skeptical sneer "What is truth?" was addressed to Truth Himself, standing there right in front of his face. The world's stupidest question was three words; God's profoundest answer was one Word.
— Peter Kreeft, Jesus-Shock
Principles are what people have instead of God.To be a Christian means among other things to be willing if necessary to sacrifice even your highest principles for God's or your neighbour's sake the way a Christian pacifist must be willing to pick up a baseball bat if there's no other way to stop a man from savagely beating a child.Jesus didn't forgive his executioners on principle but because in some unimaginable way he was able to love them.'Principle' is an even duller word than 'Religion'.
— Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC
At present we are on the outside… the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the pleasures we see. But all the pages of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get “in”… We will put on glory… that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch.We do not want to merely “see” beauty -- though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words–to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.
— C.S. Lewis
If Christ has been given us, if we are called to his discipleship we are given all things, literally _all_ things. He will see to it that they are added unto us. If we follow Jesus and look only to His righteousness, we are in his hands and under the protection of Him and His Father. And if we are in communion with the Father, nought can harm us. God will help us in the hour of need, and He knows our needs.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
So they crucified their Messiah? Well can I believe it. That He was a Son of the Living Spirit would be naught to them, if indeed He was so.... They would care little for any God if he came not with pomp and power.
— H. Rider Haggard
To desire Him to be merciful to us is to acknowledge Him as God. To seek His pity when we deserve no pity is to ask Him to be just with a justice so holy that it knows no evil and shows mercy to everyone who does not fly from Him in despair.
— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
It is by the Holy Spirit that we love those who are united to us in Christ. The more plentifully we have received of the Spirit of Christ, the more perfectly we are able to love them: and the more we love them the more we receive the Spirit. It is clear, however, that since we love them by the Spirit Who is given to us by Jesus, it is Jesus Himself Who loves them in us.
— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
Therefore let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers' (Rom 13.1). The Christian must not be drawn to the bearers of high office; his calling is to stay below. The higher power are over him, and he must remain under them. The world exercises dominion, the Christian serves, and thus he shares the earthly lot of his Lord, who became a servant. 'For there is no power but of God.' (Mark 10.42-45) These words are addressed to the Christians, not to the powers.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son [Stalin], so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
— Austin 3:16
God out of His own will expresses and manifests Himself in the human body and not to be obtained by self-exertion. The question may rise what others will do? The answer is the life of Jesus and Sri Ramkrishna. Others will lead their lives according to the instructions as given to them by their own lives. - Sri Jibankrishna (Diamond)
— Jibankrishna
There is no excuse for anyone to misunderstand God's Word if he will, like a child, accept the Bible for what it says, and be honest enough to consecrate himself to obey it. He must accept the Bible as God's Word. He must believe that God could not be honest if He sought to hide from man the very things He will judge him by in the end. He must accept the Bible as the final Court of Appeal on its own subjects, and forget man's interpretations and distortion of the Word. He must believe that God knows what He is talking about; that He knows how to express Himself in human language; that He said what He meant, and meant what He said; and that what He says on a subject is more important than what any man may say about it.
— Finis Jennings Dake, God's Plan for Man: Contained in Fifty-Two Lessons, One for Each Week of the Year
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.
— Plato
Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Compassion is the basis of morality.
— Arthur Schopenhauer
No one has ever become poor by giving.
— Anne Frank, diary of Anne Frank: the play
for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.
— Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, pray, love: one woman's search for everything
We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
— Arthur Schopenhauer, The Basis of Morality
You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.
— John Bunyan
While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.
— Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah
Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection - or compassionate action.
— Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships
Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
— Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times
If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.
— Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book
And when I came in with tears in my eyes, you always knew whether I needed you to hold me or just let me be. I don't know how you knew, but you did, and you made it easier for me.
— Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
— Mahatma Gandhi
The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.
— Louis C.K.
How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known?
— Orhan Pamuk, Snow
We only have what we give.
— Isabel Allende
That's what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.
— Simone de Beauvoir
A truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change even if they behave negatively or hurt you.
— Dalai Lama XIV
One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls.
— Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
On the one hand maybe I’ve remained infantile, while on the other I matured quickly, because at a young age I was very aware of suffering and fear.
— Audrey Hepburn
Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar
—  it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
If a person seems wicked, do not cast him away. Awaken him with your words, elevate him with your deeds, repay his injury with your kindness. Do not cast him away; cast away his wickedness.
— Lao Tzu
Give, but give until it hurts.
— Mother Teresa
Do you know what people really want? Everyone, I mean. Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who'd be kind to me. That's what people really want, if they're telling the truth.
— Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
Compassion is a verb.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace.
— Albert Schweitzer
When you're too religious, you tend to point your finger to judge instead of extending your hand to help.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Every life deserves a certain amount of dignity, no matter how poor or damaged the shell that carries it.
— Rick Bragg, All Over But the Shoutin'
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 place where they 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.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Half of what I say is meaningless
—  but I say it so that the other half may reach you.
Compassion is the radicalism of our time.
— Dalai Lama XIV
You are mad!" she snapped, her chest heaving. "And you are a devil!""And you, my dear," Royce imperturbably replied, "are a bitch." With that, heturned to the horrified friar and unhesitatingly announced, "The lady and I wish to be wed.
— Judith McNaught, A Kingdom of Dreams
Hurt people hurt people. We are not being judgmental by separating ourselves from such people. But we should do so with compassion. Compassion is defined as a "keen awareness of the suffering of another coupled with a desire to see it relieved." People hurt others as a result of their own inner strife and pain. Avoid the reactive response of believeing they are bad; they already think so and are acting that way. They aren't bad; they are damaged and they deserve compassion. Note that compassion is an internal process, an understanding of the painful and troubled road trod by another. It is not trying to change or fix that person.
— Will Bowen, Complaint Free Relationships: Transforming Your Life One Relationship at a Time
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Cruel people offer pity when they no longer feel threatened. However, kind people offer compassion and understanding regardless.
— Shannon L. Alder
The world gives us PLENTY of opportunities to strengthen our patience. While this truth can definitely be challenging, this is a good thing. Patience is a key that unlocks the door to a more fulfilling life. It is through a cultivation of patience that we become better parents, powerful teachers, great businessmen, good friends, and a live a happier life.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.... What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.
— Robert F. Kennedy
His lips soften into a smile that cracks apart my spine. He repeats my name like the word amuses him. Entertains him. Delights him. 
— Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me
Why are you touchin
— Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me
Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It's the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too. 
— Frederick Buechner
My husband, Andrius, says that evil will rule until good men or women choose to act. I believe him. This testimony was written to create an absolute record, to speak in a world where our voices have been extinguished. These writing may shock or horrify you, but that is not my intention. It is my greatest hope that the pages in this jar stir your deepest well of human compassion. I hope they prompt you to do something, to tell somone. Only then can we ensure that this kind of evil is never allowed to repeat itself.
— Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray
You stand for what is right, Lina, without the expectation of gratitude or reward.
— Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray
Nothing that we despise in other men is inherently absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or don't do, and more in light of what they suffer.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
When I tried this morning, after an hour or so of unhappy thinking, to dip back into my meditation, I took a new idea with me: compassion. I asked my heart if it could please infuse my soul with a more generous perspective on my mind's workings. Instead of thinking that I was a failure, could I perhaps accept that I am only a human being--and a normal one, at that?
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
We all of us need to be toppled off the throne of self, my dear," he said. "Perched up there the tears of others are never upon our own cheek.
— Elizabeth Goudge, The White Witch
Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question of what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing 'we' can do -- but who is that 'we'? -- and nothing 'they' can do either -- and who are 'they' -- then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic.
— Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others
That's how powerful you are, girl...You pretty, but pretty alone is not what people see. You the kinda pretty, the kinda beauty, that's like a mirror. Men and women see themselves in you, only now they so beautiful that they can't bear to see you go.
— Walter Mosley, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey
The most treasured and sacred moments of our lives are those filled with the spirit of love. The greater the measure of our love, the greater is our joy. In the end, the development of such love is the true measure of success in life.
— Joseph B. Wirthlin
As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath.
— Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
Be kind to people whether they deserve your kindness or not. If your kindness reaches the deserving good for you if your kindness reaches the undeserving take joy in your compassion.
— James Fadiman, Essential Sufism
Sometimes, you will go through awful trials in your life and then a miracle happens--God heals you. Don’t be disheartened when the people you love don’t see things like you do. There will be Pharisees in your life that will laugh it off, deny that it happened, or will mock your experience based on righteousness they think you don't possess. God won't deny you a spiritual experience because you are not a spiritual leader. He loves everyone equal. The only people that really matter in life are the people that can “see” your heart and rejoice with you.
— Shannon L. Alder
We have to make mistakes, it's how we learn compassion for others.
— Curtis Sittenfeld, American Wife
Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and 'animals' is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them — without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us.
— Carl Sagan
The nature of compassion isn't coming to terms with your own suffering and applying it to others: It's knowing that other folks around you suffer and, no matter what happens to you, no matter how lucky or unlucky you are, they keep suffering. And if you can do something about that, then you do it, and you do it without whining or waving your own fuckin' cross for the world to see. You do it because it's the right thing to do.
— John Connolly, Dark Hollow
When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating to the other. Work on that. Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery, and let him think how much he dislikes it. Let him assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy - if you know your job he will not notice the immense improbability of the assumption. And, of course, never let him suspect that he has tones and looks which similarly annoy her. As he cannot see or hear himself, this easily managed.
— C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Thus, when we plead for the gift of charity, we aren't asking for lovely feelings toward someone who bugs us or someone who has injured or wounded us. We are actually pleading for our very natures to be changed, for our character and disposition to become more and more like the Savior's, so that we literally feel as He would feel and thus do what He would do.
— Sheri Dew, If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard: And Other Reassuring Truths
One smile has the power to...Calm fears.Soften stone walls.Warm a cold heart.Invite a new friend.Mimic a loving hug.Beautify the bearer.Lighten heavy loads.Promote good deeds.Brighten a gloomy day.Comfort a grieving spirit.Offer hope to the forlorn.Send a message of caring.Lift the downtrodden soul.Patch up invisible wounds.Weaken the hold of misery.Act as medicine for suffering.Attract the companionship of angels.Fulfill the human need for recognition.Who knew changing the world would prove so simple?
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
Don't judge without having heard both sides. Even persons who think themselves virtuous very easily forget this elementary rule of prudence.
— Josemaría Escrivá, The Way of The Cross
Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals. (attr to J. Isham)
— Sura Hart, Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids: 7 Keys to Turn Family Conflict into Cooperation
Sensitive people care when the world doesn't because we understand waiting to be rescued and no one shows up. We have rescued ourselves, so many times that we have become self taught in the art of compassion for those forgotten.
— Shannon L. Alder
When we refuse to work with our disappointment, we break the Precepts: rather than experience the disappointment, we resort to anger, greed, gossip, criticism. Yet it's the moment of being that disappointment which is fruitful; and, if we are not willing to do that, at least we should notice that we are not willing. The moment of disappointment in life is an incomparable gift that we receive many times a day if we're alert. This gift is always present in anyone's life, that moment when 'It's not the way I want it!
— Charlotte Joko Beck
Walk with me for a while, my friend—you in my shoes, I in yours—and then let us talk.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
Bahujanahitāya bahujanasukhāya lokānukampāya:For the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world.
— Gautama Buddha
Compassion is like mother giving love to her children. Mother’s ways are higher than others, even when everyone rejects, mother accepts with her arms open and wide.
— Amit Ray
Give freely to the world these gifts of love and compassion. Do not concern yourself with how much you receive in return, just know in your heart it will be returned.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
I don't want my life to be defined by what is etched on a tombstone. I want it to be defined by what is etched in the lives and hearts of those I've touched.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.
— Dalai Lama XIV
The exaggerated dopamine sensitivity of the introvert leads one to believe that when in public, introverts, regardless of its validity, often feel to be the center of (unwanted) attention hence rarely craving attention. Extroverts, on the other hand, seem to never get enough attention. So on the flip side it seems as though the introvert is in a sense very external and the extrovert is in a sense very internal - the introvert constantly feels too much 'outerness' while the extrovert doesn't feel enough 'outerness'.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, when I give I give myself.
— Walt Whitman
Let us remember that animals are not mere resources for human consumption. They are splendid beings in their own right, who have evolved alongside us as co-inheritors of all the beauty and abundance of life on this planet
— Marc Bekoff, Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect
In the things that really matter--our covenants, the commandments, and following the prophet--we need to be completely united. In the non-essentials, we have our agency to handle things as we see fit. But, in all things, regardless of whether we make the same choices or not, we are to treat each other with dignity and respect, both of which are evidences of charity in our hearts and lives.
— Sheri Dew, If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard: And Other Reassuring Truths
LOVE of others is the appreciation of one's self. MAY your egotism be so gigantic that you comprise mankind in your self-sympathy.
— Mina Loy, The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems of Mina Loy
Compassion is, by definition, relational. Compassion literally means “to suffer with,” which implies a basic mutuality in the experience of suffering. The emotion of compassion springs from the recognition that the human experience is imperfect.
— Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself
When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.
— Shirley Chisholm
Be tough minded but tenderhearted.
— H. Jackson Brown Jr., Life's Little Instruction Book: 511 Suggestions, Observations, and Reminders on How to Live a Happy and Rewarding Life
Close both eyes see with the other one. Then we are no longer saddled by the burden of our persistent judgments our ceaseless withholding our constant exclusion. Our sphere has widened and we find ourselves quite unexpectedly in a new expansive location in a place of endless acceptance and infinite love.
— Gregory J. Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
There is no small act of kindness.Every compassionate act makes large the world.
— Mary Anne Radmacher
The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.
— Robert Baden-Powell
One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone.
— Shannon L. Alder
When we know ourselves to be connected to all others, acting compassionately is simply the natural thing to do. 
— Rachel Naomi Remen
For animals that are overworked, underfed, and cruelly treated; for all wistful creatures in captivity that beat their wings against bars; for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry; for all that must be put to death...and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words.
— Albert Schweitzer
You know what?' said Vimes aloud. 'This is going to be the world's first democratically killed dragon. One man, one stab.'Then you've got to stop them. You can't let them kill it!' said Lady Ramkin.Vimes blinked at her.Pardon?' he said.It's wounded!'Lady, that was the intention, wasn't it? Anyway, it's only stunned,' said 
— Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
I am not going to change who I am. I am human and I know how to love, and be kind, and be compassionate to those who are weaker than me. Just because I have power doesn't mean I have to use it!
— Garth Nix, Superior Saturday
Today I will take the opportunity to do unanticipated good.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
We often get caught up in our own reactions and forget the vulnerability of the person in front of us.
— Sharon Salzberg, The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion
Compassionate love may be strong. It sobs, it burns, then it wipes away its tears – and it does nothing.
— Alexander Herzen
How could it ever be to our purpose to rob another living being of his or her purpose?
— Will Tuttle, The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony
Those who unlock your compassion are those to whom you've been assigned.
— Mike Murdock
To embrace suffering culminates in greater empathy, the capacity to feel what it is like for the other to suffer, which is the ground for unsentimental compassion and love. (157)
— Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral,' Smiley went on, more lightly. 'Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things.
— John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Whether you believe in God or not does not matter so much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much; as a Buddhist, whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. And a good life does not mean just good food, good clothes, good shelter. These are not sufficient. A good motivation is what is needed: compassion, without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their rights and human dignity.
— Dalai Lama XIV
Embrace love and compassion with all your spirit. Understand that they never hurt or offend, they just heal and empower.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
...It also taught me that while cruelty can be fun for a few moments, compassion has a much longer shelf life.
— Doreen Orion, Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own
one does not remember one’s own pain. It is the suffering of others that undoes us
— Anna Funder, All That I Am
How can one ever do anything nobly Christian, living among people with such petty thoughts?
— George Eliot, Middlemarch
As long as you are standing, give a hand to those who have fallen.
— Persian Proverb
It's a little embarrassing that after 45 years of research & study, the best advice I can give people is to be a little kinder to each other.
— Aldous Huxley
Being kind to someone, only to look kind to others, defeats the purpose of being kind.
— Shannon L. Alder
A dog has the soul of a philosopher.
— Plato
If it is not tempered by compassion, and empathy, reason can lead men and women into a moral void. (95)
— Karen Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life
Everyone has baggage, maybe we should help each other carry it.
— Rob Liano
Perhaps,” murmured his lordship, “I yielded to a compassionate impulse.”“A what?” gasped his best friend. “Oh, did you think I never did so?” said his lordship, the satirical glint in his eyes extremely pronounced. “You wrong me! I do, sometimes—not frequently, of course, but every now and then!
— Georgette Heyer, Frederica
Patience has all the time it needs.
— Allan Lokos, Patience: The Art of Peaceful Living
In great hearts the cruelty of life gives birth to good.
— Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate
O my son Absalom,' Bean said softly, knowing for the first time the kind of anguish that could tear such words from a man’s mouth. 'my son, my son Absalom. Would God I could die for thee, O Absalom, my son. My sons!
— Orson Scott Card, Ender's Shadow
A single act of kindness is like a drop of oil on a patch of dry skin—seeping, spreading, and affecting more than the original need.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
Experience, or what we call experience, is not the inventory of our pains, but rather the learned sympathy towards the pain of others.
— Juan Gabriel Vásquez, The Sound of Things Falling
If there is a fundamental challenge within these stories, it is simply to change our lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than other lives.
— Gregory J. Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
Praise be to God; whose compassion is all-embracing and Whose mercy is universal; Who rewards His servants for their remembrance [dhikr] [of Him] with His remembrance [of them] - verily God (Exalted is He!) has said, 'Remember Me, and I will remember you' - Opening lines from Kitab al-Adhkar wa'l Da'awat of the Ihya ulum ad-Din
— حجة الإسلام أبو حامد محمد الغزالي
If bullies actually believe that somebody loves them and believes in them, they will love themselves, they will become better people, and many will even become saviors to the bullied.
— Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing
The ragamuffin gospel reveals that Jesus forgives sins, including the sins of the flesh; that He is comfortable with sinners who remember how to show compassion; but that He cannot and will not have a relationship with pretenders in the Spirit.
— Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
What do you want with these special Jewish pains? I feel as close to the wretched victims of the rubber plantations in Putamayo and the blacks of Africa with whose bodies the Europeans play ball… I have no special corner in my heart for the ghetto: I am at home in the entire world, where there are clouds and birds and human tears.
— Rosa Luxemburg
We don’t need any sort of religious orientation to lead a life that is ethical, compassionate & kind.
— Sharon Salzberg, The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.
— Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
One who utters speech that isn't rough But instructive and truthfulSo that he offends no one, Him I call Brahmin.
— Anonymous, The Dhammapada
Should I, too, prefer the title of 'non-Jewish Jew'? For some time, I would have identified myself strongly with the attitude expressed by Rosa Luxemburg, writing from prison in 1917 to her anguished friend Mathilde Wurm:An inordinate proportion of the Marxists I have known would probably have formulated their own views in much the same way. It was almost a point of honor not to engage in 'thinking with the blood,' to borrow a notable phrase from D.H. Lawrence, and to immerse Jewishness in other and wider struggles. Indeed, the old canard about 'rootless cosmopolitanism' finds a perverse sort of endorsement in Jewish internationalism: the more emphatically somebody stresses that sort of rhetoric about the suffering of others, the more likely I would be to assume that the speaker was a Jew. Does this mean that I think there are Jewish 'characteristics'? Yes, I think it must mean that.
— Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir
Humans have long since possessed the tools for crafting a better world. Where love, compassion, altruism and justice have failed, genetic manipulation will not succeed.
— Gina Maranto, Quest for Perfection: The Drive to Breed Better Human Beings
Instead of seeing how much pain I can dish out towards those I disagree with, or who I believe have done me wrong, I seek to follow the golden rule and use my words and behavior to create more of what the world needs – love, compassion, and connection.
— Aspen Baker
Brain without heart is far more dangerous than heart withoutbrain.
— Robert G. Ingersoll
It is curious what patches of hardness and tenderness lie side by side in men’s dispositions. I suppose he has some test by which he finds out whom Heaven cares for.
— George Eliot, Middlemarch
It is therefore of supreme importance that we consent to live not for ourselves but for others. When we do this we will be able first of all to face and accept our own limitations. As long as we secretly adore ourselves, our own deficiencies will remain to torture us with an apparent defilement. But if we live for others, we will gradually discover that no expects us to be 'as gods'. We will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.
— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
How good life is when one does something good and just!
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
I think people believe empathy to be compassion, that compassion is an inner sense (a sense of the soul). But empathy is a sense, while compassion isn't a sense. Empathy is an affinity, a communion, a comprehension. They say that empathy is compassion, but I think that the two are independent of each other. You see, through empathy you will feel what another is feeling, including all those plans for manipulation and persuasion. You will feel everything, not just the parts that make you take compassion for the person, but also all the red flags! You see, empathy is a sense that works with the other senses such as foresight and intuition. So, we can feel compassion but we have to move with empathy.
— C. JoyBell C.
Pardon all runners,All speechless, alien winds,All mad waters.Pardon their impulses,Their wild attitudes,Their young flights, their reticence.When a message has no clothes onHow can it be spoken.
— Thomas Merton
To be grounded in an attitude of compassion is to be capable of receiving and welcoming the suffering, which the other is giving us. This does not mean that we suffer for them, but that we offer them possibility of going beyond the separate self in which suffering is harbored. (59)
— Jean-Yves Leloup, Compassion and Meditation: The Spiritual Dynamic between Buddhism and Christianity
We numb our minds and heart so one need not be broken and the other need not be bothered.
— Peggy Haymes
We find greater lightness & ease in our lives as we increasingly care for ourselves & other beings.
— Sharon Salzberg, The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion
The Goddess spoke to all the dead. She was beloved for it. It seemed she passed on that gift to you. Oh, it taxed her immensely, but she tried to set as many to rest as she could. Sometimes it only takes one word of kindness, you know, to set a soul at ease.
— Leanna Renee Hieber, The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker
Once someone appears to us primarily as an object, kindness has no place to root.
— Sharon Salzberg, The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion
What is the real origin of my own anger? Is it the ego defending its territory, or is it something that has its source in the desire for the well-being of all? (73)
— Jean-Yves Leloup, Compassion and Meditation: The Spiritual Dynamic between Buddhism and Christianity
surround yourself with people who allow you to be yourself, it does not mean be around others who do not have a sense of right or wrong, who lack respect, love and compassion for others.
— Tasha Hoggatt
It is compassion, the most gracious of virtues,Which moves the world.
— Thiruvalluvar, Kural
No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s own culture but within oneself.
— Barry López, Arctic Dreams
Compassion is nothing one feels with the intellect alone. Compassion is particular
—  it is never general.
If literature does one thing, it makes you more empathetic by making you live other lives and feel the pain of others. Ideologues don't feel the pain of others because they haven't imaginatively got under their skins.
— Yann Martel
Love and accept everyone for who they are, for where they are in life. That is compassion.
— Kristi Bowman
A GUIDED TOUR OF SUFFERING: To your left, perhaps your right, perhaps even straight ahead, you find a small black room. In it sits a Jew. He is scum. He is starving. He is afraid. Please - try not to look away.
— Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
I am grateful to realize that my desires do not entitle me to add to another's suffering.
— Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life
I couldn’t think of anyone I’d ever felt sorry for. There were plenty of kids I was envious of. There were others I achingly admired, but that might simply be another form of jealousy. Then there were those I feared, dreaded. And the worst of them, the man who shamed me. I could see my father’s angry features looming over my mother. I could clearly picture her beside him in his truck, cowering against the door while he belittled and assaulted her.	I guess I did know someone I felt sorry for.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Dandelions: The Disappearance of Annabelle Fancher