A collection of quotes on the topic of compass, compassion, love, other.
Shared on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MayaAngelou/posts/10150251846629796, July 4, 2011
“We have so far to go to realize our human potential for compassion, altruism, and love.”
Source: Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating
1988
As quoted in "Entrevista com o médico americano P. Adams" in Roda Viva - Entrevista (13 November 2007)
written in her Journal, 1905
Quote of Werefkin's Journal, 1905; in Briefe an einen Unbekannten, ed. Clemens Weiler, Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont, 1960, p. 50
1895 - 1905
Page 34
Describing his first healing service, healing 15 people after delivering a sermon unprepared.
The Complete Story: A New Biography on the Apostle of Faith By Julian Wilson http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=e2RWZpOHfmoC|Wigglesworth:
“Those who unlock your compassion are those to whom you've been assigned.”
?
Books, The Beggar, Volume IV: Die Before Dying (Hari-Nama Press, 2005)
Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St. Andrews, Feb. 1st 1867 (1867) p. 36. http://books.google.com/books?id=DFNAAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA36
Source: Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867
Context: What is called the Law of Nations is not properly law, but a part of ethics: a set of moral rules, accepted as authoritative by civilized states. It is true that these rules neither are nor ought to be of eternal obligation, but do and must vary more or less from age to age, as the consciences of nations become more enlightened, and the exigences of political society undergo change. But the rules mostly were at their origin, and still are, an application of the maxims of honesty and humanity to the intercourse of states. They were introduced by the moral sentiments of mankind, or by their sense of the general interest, to mitigate the crimes and sufferings of a state of war, and to restrain governments and nations from unjust or dishonest conduct towards one another in time of peace. Since every country stands in numerous and various relations with the other countries of the world, and many, our own among the number, exercise actual authority over some of these, a knowledge of the established rules of international morality is essential to the duty of every nation, and therefore of every person in it who helps to make up the nation, and whose voice and feeling form a part of what is called public opinion. Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject. It depends on the habit of attending to and looking into public transactions, and on the degree of information and solid judgment respecting them that exists in the community, whether the conduct of the nation as a nation, both within itself and towards others, shall be selfish, corrupt, and tyrannical, or rational and enlightened, just and noble.
§ 1.33
Yoga Sutras of Patañjali
Source: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Page 28
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)
Source: Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis
Source: Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
“Music is my mother and my father; it is my work and my rest… my blood… my compass… my love…”
Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 89
Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 313-314
"Steve-O Snags Top PETA Honor" https://www.peta.org/blog/steve-o-takes-top-peta-honor/, PETA (July 18, 2011).
“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”
Source: Buddha's Little Instruction Book
Source: Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Source: My Name is Red
“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar.”
1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)
Context: A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be changed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
Source: The Faraway Nearby
Variant translation: Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.
Variant translation: Until we extend the circle of compassion to all living things, we will not ourselves find peace.
Kulturphilosophie (1923)
“Make no judgments where you have no compassion.”
Source: The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Source: Tao of Jeet Kune Do
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
“The gap between compassion and surrender is love’s darkest, deepest region.”
Source: The Museum of Innocence
Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 223 https://archive.org/stream/basisofmorality00schoiala#page/223/mode/2up
On the Basis of Morality (1840)
Source: The Basis of Morality
“O, ah! The awareness of emptiness brings forth a heart of compassion!”
“The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others.”
Variant: The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.
“Sometimes, in difficult circumstances, one can confuse compassion with love.”
Source: The Angel's Game
Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential
Source: The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Source: The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), p. 22
Humanity
One Minute Wisdom (1989)
Context: Much advance publicity was made for the address the Master would deliver on The Destruction of the World and a large crowd gathered at the monastery grounds to hear him.
The address was over in less than a minute. All he said was:
"These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness and worship without awareness."
Concepts
No. 120 (18 July 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
XXXIX, 22, p. 172
‘The Second Part’, Chapters IV-XLI
Joanna Denny (2006) Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen, Da Capo Press, ISBN 0306814749, p. 140.
Concepts
Speech at the American Enterprise Institute http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/21/cheney_obama_keeping_america_safe_96615.html (21 May, 2009)
2000s, 2009
Variant: Men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, and pass themselves by.
Source: Confessions (c. 397), X
The Colossus of Maroussi (1941)
“The whole world would have been destroyed if compassion did not put an end to anger.”
Perierat totus orbis, nisi iram finiret misericordia.
Book I, Chapter I; slightly modified translation from Michael Winterbottom, Declamations of the Elder Seneca (London: Heinemann, 1974) vol. 1 p. 33
Controversiae
Quoted by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, at Colorado Outward Bound's 25th anniversary in 1987; as cited in Leadership the Outward Bound Way (2007), ISBN 159485033X.
Un chagrin de passage (1994, A Fleeting Sorrow, translated 1995)
Ten best quotes: HH Sheikh Mohammed, http://www.arabianbusiness.com/photos/ten-best-quotes-hh-sheikh-mohammed-503777.html?img=0, Arabian Business.
The Crisis No. I.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)
From the song offered to Geshe Tsaphoua, as quoted in Meditation Techniques of the Buddhist and Taoist Masters (2003) by Daniel Odier, p. 104 https://books.google.it/books?id=9BXTAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA104
§ 116
The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695)
Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1855/mar/26/newspaper-stamp-duties-bill in the House of Commons (26 March 1855).
1850s
2012, Remarks at Clinton Global Initiative (September 2012)
Mystic Treatises, cited in Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1976), [//books.google.it/books?id=dxqvWwPSCSwC&pg=PA111 p. 111]; also cited and discussed in A. M. Allchin, The World is a Wedding (1978), p. 85. Quoted in Andrew Linzey, Animal Theology (1994), [//books.google.it/books?id=ESTjQYS_8hMC&pg=PA56 p. 56].
Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1961), pp. 100-101
Statement of 25 August 1538, in Table-Talk, as translated by William Hazlitt (1857), DLXXVII
Beware of Pity (1939)
Source: Pranab Mukherjee "Speech by the President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee at the concluding function of the centenary celebrations of the former President of India, Dr. Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy"
Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe (2000), p. 215
“Vegan strongman shoulders 550 kg — a record, perhaps — at vegetarian food fest,” interview with Toronto Star (8 September 2013) https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/09/08/vegan_strongman_shoulders_550_kg_a_record_perhaps_at_vegetarian_food_fest.html.
Apparent Failure, vii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
The final issue of Neue Rheinische Zeitung (18 May 1849)'Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, Vol. VI, p. 503,
Variant translation: We are ruthless and ask no quarter from you. When our turn comes we shall not disguise our terrorism.
Context: Did you not read our articles about the June revolution, and was not the essence of the June revolution the essence of our paper?
Why then your hypocritical phrases, your attempt to find an impossible pretext?
We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. But the royal terrorists, the terrorists by the grace of God and the law, are in practice brutal, disdainful, and mean, in theory cowardly, secretive, and deceitful, and in both respects disreputable.
Freedom from Fear (1991)
Context: The wellspring of courage and endurance in the face of unbridled power is generally a firm belief in the sanctity of ethical principles combined with a historical sense that despite all setbacks the condition of man is set on an ultimate course for both spiritual and material advancement. It is his capacity for self-improvement and self-redemption which most distinguishes man from the mere brute. At the root of human responsibility is the concept of perfection, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path towards it, and the will to follow that path if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments. It is man's vision of a world fit for rational, civilized humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear. Concepts such as truth, justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power.
Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen
Context: Any mundane activity can become meditative. Digging a hole in the garden, planting new roses in the garden — you can do it with such tremendous love and compassion, you can do it with the hands of a buddha. There is no contradiction … I say unto you, your every act should be a ceremony. If you can bring your consciousness, your awareness, your intelligence to the act, if you can be spontaneous, then there is no need for any other religion: life itself will be the religion.
“Navigating by the compass in a sea of clouds over Spain is all very well, it is very dashing, but—”
Source: Terre des Hommes (1939), Ch. I : The Craft
Context: "Navigating by the compass in a sea of clouds over Spain is all very well, it is very dashing, but—"
And I was struck by the graphic image:
"But you want to remember that below the sea of clouds lies eternity."
And suddenly that tranquil cloud-world, that world so harmless and simple that one sees below on rising out of the clouds, took on in my eyes a new quality. That peaceful world became a pitfall. I imagined the immense white pitfall spread beneath me. Below it reigned not what one might think — not the agitation of men, not the living tumult and bustle of cities, but a silence even more absolute than in the clouds, a peace even more final. This viscous whiteness became in my mind the frontier between the real and the unreal, between the known and the unknowable. Already I was beginning to realize that a spectacle has no meaning except it be seen through the glass of a culture, a civilization, a craft. Mountaineers too know the sea of clouds, yet it does not seem to them the fabulous curtain it is to me.
2015, Address to the People of India (January 2015)
Context: The peace we seek in the world begins in human hearts. And it finds its glorious expression when we look beyond any differences in religion or tribe, and rejoice in the beauty of every soul. [... ] Do we act with compassion and empathy. [... ] we have to guard against any efforts to divide ourselves along sectarian lines or any other lines.
2013, Commencement Address at Ohio State University (May 2013)
Context: In the aftermath of darkest tragedy, we have seen the American spirit at its brightest. We’ve seen the petty divisions of color, class, and creed replaced by a united urge to help. We’ve seen courage and compassion, a sense of civic duty, and a recognition that we are not a collection of strangers; we are bound to one another by a set of ideals, and laws, and commitments, and a deep devotion to this country we love.
That’s what citizenship is. It’s the idea at the heart of our founding – that as Americans, we are blessed with God-given and inalienable rights, but with those rights come responsibilities – to ourselves, to one another, and to future generations.
But if we’re being honest, as you’ve studied and worked and served to become good citizens, the institutions that give structure to our society have, at times, betrayed your trust. In the run-up to the financial crisis, too many on Wall Street forgot that their obligations don’t end with their shareholders. In entertainment and in the media, ratings and shock value often trumped news and storytelling. And in Washington – well, this is a joyous occasion, so let me put this charitably: I think it’s fair to say our democracy isn’t working as well as we know it can. It could do better. And those of us fortunate enough to serve in these institutions owe it to you to do better, every single day.
2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)
Context: We do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their fundamental faith in human progress — that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.
For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace — then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.
Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
Let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.
As quoted in "Ronald Reagan and Race" https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ronald-reagan-and-race-richard-nixon-tape/ (August 2019), by Jay Nordlinger, National Review
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)
