Famous Quotes & Sayings

Henry Ward Beecher

People may excite in themselves a glow of compassion, not by toasting their feet at the fire, and saying: "Lord, teach me compassion," but by going and seeking an object that requires compassion.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Can a sparrow know how a stork feels?

Joan Halifax

Most of us are shrinking in the face of psycho-social and physical poisons, of the toxins of our world. But compassion, the generation of compassion, actually mobilizes our immunity.

Joan Halifax

We live in a time when science is validating what humans have known throughout the ages: that compassion is not a luxury; it is a necessity for our well-being, resilience, and survival.

Joan Halifax

Compassion may be defined as the capacity to be attentive to the experience of others, to wish the best for others, and to sense what will truly serve others.

Joan Halifax

Don't ever think compassion is weak. Compassion is about strength.

Joan Halifax

May I see my own limits with compassion, just as I view the limits of others.

Jim McDermott

There's nothing wrong with the free-enterprise system. But it has to have some compassion.

Jim Kolbe

Tim Bee has demonstrated his toughness and his compassion, his ability to lead while at the same time listening to others. These are skills few people in public life have. We need Tim Bee working for us in Congress.

Just as the grammarian makes one study grammar, A Buddha teaches according to the tolerance of his students; Some he urges to refrain from sins, others to do good, Some to rely on dualism, other on non-dualism; And to some he teaches the profound, The terrifying, the practice of enlightenment, Whose essence is emptiness that is compassion

Adlai Stevenson

[I]t is difficult to picture the great Creator conceiving of a program of one creature (which He has made) using another living creature for purposes of experimentation. There must be other, less cruel ways of obtaining knowledge.

Compassion is the desire that moves the individual self to widen the scope of its self-concern to embrace the whole of the universal self.

David Stern

epitomized hard work, dedication and perseverance, and more importantly compassion, kindness and selflessness.

Nicole Murphy

They have a lot of wisdom they can pass onto the students. It teaches (the students) a lot about compassion. For the seniors . . . it helps them stay young.

Herman Melville

Nobody is so heartily despised as a pusillanimous, lazy, good-for-nothing, land-lubber; a sailor has no bowels of compassion for him.

Ezra Koenig

All I know for sure is that issues like race, like class, are always best approached with compassion and open-mindedness.

Helen Keller

The test of a democracy is not the magnificence of buildings or the speed of automobiles or the efficiency of air transportation, but rather the care given to the welfare of all the people.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.

George Saunders

Fiction is a kind of compassion-generating machine that saves us from sloth. Is life kind or cruel? Yes, Literature answers. Are people good or bad? You bet, says Literature. But unlike other systems of knowing, Literature declines to eradicate one truth in favor of another.

James A. Forbes

Proclaim a theology of divine righteousness which demands justice, respect, tolerance, compassion, inclusiveness, trust in the ultimate efficacy of divine zeal, and the rigorous pursuit of peace in the midst of competing interests and faith claims.

Jackie Tabick

This idea of compassion comes to us because we're made in the image of God, who is ultimately the compassionate one.

Gary Zukav

Without an awareness of our feelings we cannot experience compassion. How can we share the sufferings and the joys of others if we cannot experience our own?

Gary Zukav

Developing compassion for Congress and politicians is a good way to begin practicing the new social activism if you want to make effective changes in the world. Perhaps the most startling new insight of all is that there is no other way to effectively change the world.

Gary Zukav

Authentic power is the energy that Is formed by the intentions of the Soul. It is the light shaped by the intentions of love and compassion guided by wisdom

Gary Bauer

One thing everyone seems to agree on is that Republicans face a perceived compassion deficit.

Christopher Darden

The law has no compassion. And justice is administered without compassion.

Christina Baldwin

With compassion, we see benevolently our own human condition and the condition of our fellow beings. We drop prejudice. We withhold judgment.

George Saunders

Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.

Friedrich Nietzsche

From the Sun I learned this: when he goes down, overrich; he pours gold into the sea out of inexhaustible riches, so that even the poorest fisherman still rows with golden oars. For this I once saw and I did not tire of my tears as I watched it.

Jim Carrey

Compassion is the currency that leads to true wealth.

George Eliot

Doubtless a great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity.

George Eliot

My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Seeing him like this, dressed just for her in so patent a manner, she could not hold back the fiery blush that rose to her face. She was embarrassed when she greeted him, and he was more embarrassed by her embarrassment. The knowledge that they were behaving as if they were sweethearts was even more embarrassing, and the knowledge that they were both embarrassed embarrassed them so much that Captain Samaritano noticed it with a tremor of compassion.