“Might I indicate the difficulty which some of us feel over collective compassion? The good Samaritan had compassion. If two good Samaritans had compassion, that would still be individual compassion, not collective compassion. If the good Samaritan had been obliged by decree of the Roman Emperor to assist the traveller, that would not be compassion at all, because it would be done under obligation.”
Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1979/may/22/the-economy-pay-and-prices#S5CV0967P0_19790522_HOC_260 in the House of Commons (22 May 1979)
1970s
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Enoch Powell 155
British politician 1912–1998Related quotes

“No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.”
TV Interview for London Weekend Television Weekend World (6 January 1980) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=104210
First term as Prime Minister

Nonsense! The purpose of your vote is not to make yourself subscribe—that you can freely do at any time—but to compel others.
Speech to the Harborough Division Conservative Association Gala, Leicester (27 September 1969), from Still to Decide (Elliot Right Way Books, 1972), pp. 22-23
1960s

Mailer's Introduction to the 50th Anniversary Edition (1998)
The Naked and the Dead (1948)
Context: For that is the genius of the old man — Tolstoy teaches us that compassion is of value and enriches our life only when compassion is severe, which is to say when we can perceive everything that is good and bad about a character but are still able to feel that the sum of us as human beings is probably a little more good than awful … That fine edge in Tolstoy, the knowledge that compassion is valueless without severity (for otherwise it cannot defend itself against sentimentality), gave The Naked and the Dead whatever enduring virtue it may possess and catapulted the amateur who wrote it into the grim ranks of those successful literary men and women who are obliged to become professional in order to survive …

“In Lyra’s heart, revulsion struggled with compassion, and compassion won.”
Source: His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995), Ch. 13 : Fencing
Compassion, the Ultimate Ethic: An Exploration of Veganism (Wellingborough: Thorsons, 1985), p. 44.
“What would I do without the moral compass of a teenage werewolf?”
Source: Magic Burns

“I would say that compassion for our parents is the true sign of maturity.”
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)