As we grow older our sense of compassion becomes refined…

“I would say that compassion for our parents is the true sign of maturity.”

Anaïs Nin book The Diary of Anaïs Nin

The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

“I learned a long time ago that I can't live my life for everybody else. We learn and we grow from our mistakes, and we get older and more mature.”

Jaime Pressly (1977) American actress, model, producer

Jaime Pressly Opens Up About Her Divorce And Memoir

“If we don't show ourselves the same amount of compassion we show others, we'll eventually come to resent the compassion we have for others. I think there's little enough compassion in the world right now, so we need to grow our own to compensate for that.”

Kate Bornstein (1948) American author, playwright, performance artist, and gender theorist

My New Gender Workbook: A Step-by-step Guide to Achieving World Peace Through Gender Anarchy and Sex Positivity (2013), p. 6

“We have to make mistakes, it's how we learn compassion for others.”

Curtis Sittenfeld (1975) Novelist, short story writer

Source: American Wife

“Once there is empathy, then there can be the feeling we call compassion. A version of the Golden Rule — Do unto others as you would have them do unto you — is found in most religious traditions. … and emergent from our sense of compassion, in mortal conflict with our insistent sense that we should win, is our haunting sense that things should be fair.”

Ursula Goodenough book The Sacred Depths of Nature

Source: The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998), p. 114

“We are asleep with compasses in our hands.”

W.S. Merwin (1927–2019) American poet

“Show him who I am, so he will pity me instead of fearing me. And then we can turn pity into compassion, and compassion into understanding, and understanding into affection, and affection into love, and love into life, the life of our children, the life of the new self we will become together.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Homecoming saga, The Ships Of Earth (1994)

“We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

“Compassion can be offered without sacrificing a sense of urgency or a strong will to win.”

Kenneth Chenault (1951) American business executive

A Principled Leader (2004)
Context: After 9-11, I told our senior management team that this was a tremendous leadership challenge that each of us was facing and I wanted them to be courageous. I wanted them to be decisive, to not shirk away from taking tough actions. I also told them to be compassionate. If the organization believed that they were not compassionate, particularly in these times, they would lose their privilege to lead. I wouldn’t be the one to take away their leadership – the organization – the people — would. Compassion can be offered without sacrificing a sense of urgency or a strong will to win. That’s one of the values I believe in very strongly, and I talk about it in the organization. I want to win the right way. I’m very competitive. I’ve got a strong will to win, but I want to win the right way. That’s my focus.<!-- ** p. 17

“Fanaticism was poison in the soul, and the first victim in its inexorable, ever-growing list was compassion.”

Steven Erikson book The Bonehunters

The Bonehunters (2006)
Context: So much had changed inside him. He was no believer in causes, not any more. Certainty was an illusion, a lie. Fanaticism was poison in the soul, and the first victim in its inexorable, ever-growing list was compassion. Who could speak of freedom, when one's soul was bound in chains?

“As we grow older our sense of compassion becomes refined and matures; for we’ve received compassion for a lifetime of mistakes and mishaps.”

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