Quotes About Compassion

In the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes- courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, and so on - can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion, even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.

Nothing helps us build our perspective more than developing compassion for others. Compassion is a sympathetic feeling. It involves the willingness to put yourself in someone else's shoes, to take the focus off yourself and to imagine what it's like to be in someone else's predicament, and simultaneously, to feel love for that person. It's the recognition that other people's problems, their pain and frustrations, are every bit as real as our own-often far worse. In recognizing this fact and trying to offer some assistance, we open our own hearts and greatly enhance our sense of gratitude.

The highest intention comes from love and compassion ... when our intentions come from a place of love and compassion then we have the power of the universe.

Compassion can be described as letting ourselves be touched by the vulnerability and suffering that is within ourselves and all beings. The full flowering of compassion also includes action: Not only do we attune to the presence of suffering, we respond to it.

When we endure our own tragedies or trials, most of us develop some empathy and compassion for others who are suffering. The trick is to keep that sense of compassion going throughout our daily lives, when we are likely to go on automatic pilot and move back into being judgmental, especially when times are tough.

For an act to be moral the intention must be based on compassion, not duty. We do something because we want to do it, because we feel we have to do it, not because we ought to do it. And even if our efforts fail - or we never even get to implement them - we are still moral because our motivation was based on compassion.

If compassion is so good for us, why don't we train our health care providers in compassion so that they can do what they're supposed to do, which is to transform suffering?

But compassion is a deeper thing that waits beyond the tension of choosing sides. Compassion, in practice, does not require us to give up the truth of what we feel or the truth of our reality. Nor does it allow us to minimize the humanity of those who hurt us. Rather, we are asked to know ourselves enough that we can stay open to the truth of others, even when their truth or their inability to live up to their truth has hurt us.

The law of love and compassion for all living creatures is again a doctrine to which we are all too ready to pay slip service. However, if it is to become a reality, it requires a process of education, a veritable mental renaissance. Once it has become a reality, national as well as international problems will fall into perspectives and become easier to solve. Wars and conflicts, too, will then become a thing of the past, because wars begin in the minds of men, and in those minds love and compassion would have built the defenses of peace.

I feel like my joy in life has intensified, (and) my compassion for people has just strengthened. I have compassion that I wouldn't have had before.

The compassion that you see in the kindhearted is God's compassion. He has given it to them to protect the helpless.

In today's world, people experience two types of poverty: the poverty caused by lack of food, clothing and shelter, and the poverty caused by lack of love and compassion. Of these two, the second type needs to be considered first because if we have love and compassion in our hearts, then we will wholeheartedly serve those who suffer from lack of food, clothing and shelter.

Shallow understanding accompanies poor compassion; great understanding goes with great compassion.

There is a common perception that compassion is, if not actually an impediment, at least irrelevant to professional life. Personally, I would argue that not only is it relevant, but that when compassion is lacking, our activities are in danger of becoming destructive. This is because when we ignore the question of the impact our actions have on others' well-being, inevitably we end up hurting them.

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 cannot build a sound basis of compassion.

Anyone who is suffering from shame and public humiliation needs to know one thing: You can survive it... You can insist on a different ending to your story. Have compassion for yourself. We all deserve compassion, and to live both online and off in a more compassionate world.

Invoke the Mercy of God and as milk returns not to the udder go not back to your wrongdoing." "Have compassion on yourself and on others and Infinite Compassion will be given to you." "In the name of Allah, All-Merciful, All Compassionate, bestow on me a Mercy that shall put me beyond the need of mercy from any other than Thee.

True compassion is undirected & holds no conceptual focus. That kind of genuine, true compassion is only possible after realizing emptiness.

Each of us in our own way can try to spread compassion into people's hearts. Western civilizations these days place great importance on filling the human brain with knowledge, but no one seems to care about filling the human heart with compassion. This is what the real role of religion is.

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.

To show compassion for an individual without showing concern for the structures of society that make him an object of compassion is to be sentimental rather than loving.

In spiritual maturity, the opposite of injustice is not justice but compassion.

It is for us to begin. If we take one step towards the Lord, he takes ten towards us -- he who saw the prodigal son while he was at a distance, and had compassion and ran and embraced him.

You can't have pride without humility. Aggression without tolerance. Strength without compassion. Power without restraint.

A good leader leads with compassion and love, not fear and blood. A country that harms its people because they are not happy with the leader -- is not a country that belongs to the people, but to the leader.

I tried to hold on to this compassion, sensing its preciousness, but even as I reached to grasp it, it dissipated into wisps. No revelation can endure unless it is bolstered by a calm pure mind- and I'm afraid I didn't possess that.

Would a soul continually eye His everlasting tenderness and compassion...[then] it could not bear an hour's absence from Him; whereas now, perhaps, it cannot watch with him one hour.

It takes discipline and compassion to awaken the divine in ourselves long enough to recognize the divine in another.

True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings.

We are part of the whole which we call the universe, but it is an optical delusion of our mind that we think we are separate. This separateness is like a prison for us. Our job is to widen the circle of our compassion so we feel connected with all people and situations.

What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath.

A characteristic of those who are still progressing in blessed mourning is temperance and silence of the lips; and of those who have made progress - freedom from anger and patient endurance of injuries; and of the perfect - humility, thirst for dishonors, voluntary craving for involuntary afflictions, non- condemnation of sinners, compassion even beyond one's strength. The first are acceptable, the second laudable; but blessed are those who hunger for hardship and thirst for dishonor, for they shall be filled with the food whereof there can be no satiety.

The clan of heroes, the clan of compassion,the clan of destiny." (Firestar on Thunderclan, secrets of the clans) No matter what trials we must endure, Windclan will last forever."(Tallstar on Windclan, secrets of the clans) We are grace. We are power. We are Riverclan."(Leopardstar on Riverclan, secrets of the clans) Shadowclan will always be the dark heart of the forest." Blackstar on Shadowclan, secrets of the clans)

It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.

Violence is not the answer, it doesn’t work any more. We are at the end of the worst century in which the greatest atrocities in the history of the world have occurred... The nature of human beings must change. We must cultivate love and compassion.

Here's the gift of gratitude: In order to feel it, your ego has to take a backseat. What shows up in its place is greater compassion and understanding. Instead of being frustrated, you choose appreciation. And the more grateful you become, the more you have to be grateful for.

For most people, using the Internet broadens their sense of who 'we' is and actually ends up leaving us in a place of greater compassion and understanding. It leaves us more connected to a larger group of people and more at one with a lot more people in our community.

So many of us start along the spiritual path because we are suffering. But you must realize that for real healing to occur, there must first be deep compassion for yourself, especially the parts of yourself you dislike or consider ugly.

True compassion is not just an emotional response but a firm commitment founded on reason.

Anger devours almost all other good emotions. It deadens the soul. It numbs the heart to joy and gratitude and hope and tenderness and compassion and kindness.

It's more instinctive to want revenge, but we are also capable of immense amounts of forgiveness and love and a compassion that extends even to those who have brutalized us.

the knowledge of personal failure ... is the invaluable predicate of all honest compassion.

Since we desire the true happiness that is brought about by a calm mind, and such peace of mind arises only from having a compassionate attitude, we need to make a concerted effort to develop compassion.

Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.

When compassion wakes up in us, we find ourselves more willing to become vulnerable, to take the risk of entering the pain of others.

True love wasn't found in good hair or the right clothes, make-up or shoes. True love was found in the soul - as was wisdom and compassion

When we awaken the love for God, that love naturally extends toward every living being. Also, the concept of Krishna and Radha, the masculine and feminine aspect of the one supreme God, was so inclusive that it touched my heart. So when Prabhupada came, I was already following his path. But it was when I saw his compassion, concern and deep wisdom, that I accepted him as my guru and decided to try and assist him. I felt that was where my real home was.

But compassion isn't about solutions. It's about giving all the love that you've got.