Quotes about compassion

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“Now, more than any time in our history, we will be judged by our capacity for compassion.  Our ability to come through this, won’t just be down to what government or businesses do, but by the individual acts of kindness that we show each other. The small business who does everything they can not to lay off their staff.  The student who does a shop for their elderly neighbour.  The retired nurse who volunteers to cover some shifts in their local hospital. When this is over, and it will be over, we want to look back on this moment and remember the many small acts of kindness done by us and to us.  We want to look back on this time and remember how we thought first of others and acted with decency.  We want to look back on this time and remember how, in the face of a generation-defining moment, we undertook a collective national effort - and we stood together.  It’s on all of us.”

“I advise you to fear Allah alone, with no partner of associate. I advise you to treat the first Muhâjireen well and acknowledge their seniority. I advise you to treat the Ansār well, and show approval of those among them who do well, and forgive those among them who make mistakes. I advise you to treat the people of the outlying regions well, for they are a shield against the enemy and conduits of fay; do not take anything from them except that which is surplus to their needs. I advise you to treat the people of the desert well, for they are the original Arabs and the protectors of Islam. Take from the surplus of their wealth and give it to their poor. I advise you to treat ahl adh-dhīmmah well, to defend them against their enemies and not burden them with more than they can bear if they fulfill their duties towards the believers or pay the Jizyāh with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. I advise you to fear Allah and fear His wrath, lest you do anything wrong. I advise you to fear Allah with regard to the people, but do not fear the people with regard to Allah. I advise you to treat the people justly, and to devote yourself to looking after them and protecting them against their enemies. Do not show any favour to the rich over the poor. That will be better for your spiritual well being and will help to reduce your burden of sin, and it will be better for your Hereafter, until you meet the One Who knows what is in your heart. I instruct you to be strict with regard to the commands of Allah, His sacred limits and disobedience with all people, both relatives and others. Do not show any mercy to anyone until you have settled the score with him according to his offence. Treat all people as equal, and do not worry about who is as fault or fear the blame of the blamers. Beware of showing favouritism among the believers with regard to the fay that Allah has put you in charge of, lest that lead to injustice. Keep away from that. You are in a position between this world and the Hereafter. If you conduct your affairs justly in this world and refrain from indulgence, that will earn you faith and divine pleasure. I advise you not to let yourself or anyone else do wrong to ahl al-dhimmah. I advise you sincerely to seek thereby the Countenance of Allah and the Hereafter. I have chosen advice for you that I would offer to myself or my son. If you do as I have advised you and follow my instructions, you will have gained a great deal. If you don not accept it or pay attention to it, and do not handle your affairs in the way that pleases Allah, that will be a shortcoming on your part and you will have failed to be sincere, because whims and desires are the same and the cause of sin is Iblīs, who calls man to everything that will lead to his doom. He misguided the generations who came before you and led them to Hell, what a terrible abode. What a bad deal it is for a man to take the enemy of Allah as his friend, who calls him to disobey Allah. Adhere to the truth, strive hard to reach it and admonish yourself. I urge you by Allah to show mercy to the Muslims, honour their elderly, show compassion to their young ones and respect the knowledgeable ones among them. Do not harm them or humiliate them, and do not keep the fay for yourself lest you anger them. Do not deprive them of their stipends when they become due, thus making them poor. Do not keep them away on campaigns for so long that they end up having no children. Do not allow wealth to circulate only among the rich. Do not close your door to the people or allow the strong to oppress the weak. This is my advice to you, as Allah is my witness, and I greet you with peace.”

“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.”

“The base of sincere friendship is mutual joy and compassion.”

“Nature's laws deny inter-species compassion and declare it to be racial suicide.”

“We must use our brains to overcome our brains. You are the solution to this crazy world we find ourselves in. Do everything you can to reach others. Teach. Elevate. Encourage critical thinking. But do it with kindness and understanding. People who believe crazy things are only guilty of being human. Remember this and show compassion.”

“Listen with ears of tolerance!
See through the eyes of compassion!
Speak with the language of love.”

“God seems to have disappeared from the horizon, and his word no longer seems a compass guiding our lives, our basic decisions, our human and social relationships.”

“Feeling is your compass. If you can feel, you have no cause to seek an outside opinion about your direction in life.”

“To reconcile the gentleman with himself, it must be imagined that he determined the human character by the points of the compass. The truth was, that all men having power ought to be distrusted, to a certain degree.”

“Desire sets our compass, but real life steers our course.”

“Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness.”

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

“Compassion is a verb.”

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

“Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”

“Their false compassion is called compassion and their false understanding is called understanding, for this is their most potent spell.”

“We will not just say, "I love him very much," but instead, "I will do something so that he will suffer less." The mind of compassion is truly present when it is effective in removing another person's suffering.”

“Whatever God does, the first outburst is always compassion.”

“Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.”

“No one reaches out to you for compassion or empathy so you can teach them how to behave better. They reach out to us because they believe in our capacity to know our darkness well enough to sit in the dark with them.”

“Compassion is the basis of morality.”

“True beauty is about who you are as a human being, your principles, your moral compass.”

“For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”

“In all human sorrow nothing gives comfort but love and faith, and that in the sight of Christ's compassion for us no sorrow is trifling.”

“It is necessary to keep one's compass in one's eyes and not in the hand, for the hands execute, but the eye judges.”

“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”

“The ragamuffin gospel reveals that Jesus forgives sins, including the sins of the flesh; that He is comfortable with sinners who remember how to show compassion; but that He cannot and will not have a relationship with pretenders in the Spirit.”

“It's the pointless things that give your life meaning. Friendship, compassion, art, love. All of them pointless. But they're what keeps life from being meaningless.”

“Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows me to survive, and better than that, to thrive with passion, compassion, and style.”

“I was myself the compass of that sea:
I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw
Or heard or felt came not but from myself;
And there I found myself more truly and more strange.”

“The strongest, toughest men all have compassion. They're not heartless and cold. You have to be man enough to have compassion - to care about people and about your children" (217) - John Singleton "Oh Man, I've Become My Father”

“We shall be permitted to live on this planet only for as long as we treat all nature with compassion and intelligence.”

“Without suffering, there'd be no compassion.”

“It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul.”

“If it is not tempered by compassion, and empathy, reason can lead men and women into a moral void. (95)”

“He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style. We had him whether we know who he was or did not know, he was ours and we were his.”

“A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.”

“A woman may be beautiful but have poor character. A man may be a business genius, making money left and right, but lack common courtesy, sensitivity, and compassion.”

“I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion--and where it isn't, that's where my work lies.”

“She had wild eyes, slightly insane. She also carried an overload of compassion that was real enough and which obviously cost her something.”

“Those who are without compassion cannot see what is seen with the eyes of compassion.”

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

“For all the compasses in the world, there's only one direction, and time is its only measure.”

“Measure the hate you feel now, and the shame. That quantity is your capacity also to love and to feel joy and to have compassion.”

“[T]he family is a school of compassion because it is here that we learn to live with other people. (68)”

“Let us be those creative dissenters who will call our beloved nation to a higher destiny. To a new plateau of compassion, to a more noble expression of humanness.”

“Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. -Nana”

“When it comes to love, compassion, and other feelings of the heart, I am rich.”

“Compassion directed toward oneself is true humility.”

“Normal: lacking in taste, compassion, understanding, kindness, and ordinary human decency.”

“Even the strongest and bravest must sometimes weep. It shows they have a great heart, one that can feel compassion for others.”

“For pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.”

“Compassion refers to the arising in the heart of the desire to relieve the suffering of all beings.”

“What he's really saying is: Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it's so easy to forget that's what they are. She knows—she sees—how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency.”

“because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie.”

“No good has ever come from feeling guilty, neither intelligence, policy, nor compassion. The guilty do not pay attention to the object but only to themselves, and not even to their own interests, which might make sense, but to their anxieties.”

“put the car in "d" set the compass to "n" and get the "f"out of there”

“Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it's beauty.”

“Here are the values that I stand for: honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values.”

“Sarcasm and compassion are two of the qualities that make life on Earth tolerable.”

“He shook his head and squeezed my hand tight. "You are my courage, as I am your conscience," he whispered, "You are my heart-- I am your compassion. We are neither of us whole, alone. Do ye not know that, Sassenach?" --Jamie”

“We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young.”

“My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the whole earth.
I have look'd for equals and lovers an found them ready for me in all lands,
I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them”

“No matter where I was, my compass pointed west. I would always know what time it was in California.”

“Look at me, Mariam.'
Reluctantly, Mariam did.
Nana said, 'Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.”

“Atheists’ anger doesn’t prove that we’re selfish, or joyless, or miserable. It shows that we have compassion, and a sense of justice. We’re angry because we see terrible harm all around us, and we feel desperately motivated to stop it.”

“As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath.”

“The Emperor decided to make a proclamation to his troops about the importance of compassion in the face of the rising tide of heinous fuckery and political weaselocity in the nearby kingdom of the United States.”

“What would I do without the moral compass of a teenage werewolf?”

“Learn this now and learn it well. Like a compass facing north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.”

“For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?”

“Because I know you, Percy Jackson. In many ways, you are impulsive, but when it comes to your friends, you are as constant as a compass needle. You are unswervingly loyal, and you inspire loyalty. You are the glue that will unite the seven.”

“He was my first boyfriend, and I made him my everything - he was my new life, my new love, my new compass point. I guess that's the danger with firsts - you lose all sense of proportion.”

“I warn you all, hatred is finding fertile soil within me. And in your compassion, in your every good intention, you nurture it.”

“Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It's not something we have or don't have -- it's something we choose to practice.”

“The lesson I was learning involved the idea that I could feel compassion for people without acting on it.”

“Frightened people live in their own special hell. You could say they make it themselves, but they can't help it. It's the way they're built. They deserve sympathy and compassion.”

“I don't need to see the trail to know you're at the end of it. My grandfather's compass may not work, but mine is still true.”

“Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.
Marcus Aurelius”

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

“Within that moment was trust, compassion, and our mutual sense of irony. He was carrying death within him and I was carrying life. We were both aware of that, I know.”

“That explains a lot,' he said. 'I suppose it's also why we've never glimpsed that giant compass in the corner of the Atlantic. I have to say, I'm a little disappointed.”

“In this world, where we find ourselves, we need compassion more than anything, I think, or we are all alone.”

“I call upon you to draw from the depths of your being — to prove that we are a human race, to prove that our love outweighs our need to hate, that our compassion is more compelling than our need to blame”

“When your fear touches someone’s pain, it becomes pity, when your love touches someone’s pain, it become compassion.”

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

“She bludgeoned me with a look of such limitless compassion that I immediately began to cry.”

“Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion and the beginning of morality”

“I don't ever want to live in a world where something like mercy… or maybe it's compassion… is thechoice.”

“One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.”

“Your humor is your compass and your shield. You can hone it into a weapon or you can pull its strands out to make your very own cotton-candy blanket. You can’t exist on a diet of humor alone, but you can’t exist on a diet without it, either.”

“The measure of civilized behavior is compassion.”

“But no one walks out of his family without reprisals: a family is too disciplined an army to offer compassion to its deserters.”

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

“Doubt begets understanding, and understanding begets compassion. Verily, it is conviction that kills.”

“Transcend your abuse and transform it into a source of courage, creativity and compassion.”

“All life stinks and you must embrace that with compassion.”

“I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it. I would hope to act with compassion without thinking of personal gain.”