Quotes about compassion
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Tenzin Gyatso photo

“All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness … the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

As quoted in Especially for Christians: Powerful Thought-provoking Words from the Past (2005) by Mark Alton Rose, p. 19

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
John the Evangelist photo

“But whoever has the material possessions of this world and sees his brother in need and yet refuses to show him compassion, in what way does the love of God remain in him? Little children, we should love, not in word or with the tongue, but in deed and truth.”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

1 John 3:17,18 http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwt/E/2013/62/3#dcv_3_17, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
First Letter of John

David Carter photo
Patrik Baboumian photo
Boris Johnson photo

“Nothing excites compassion, in friend and foe alike, as much as the sight of you ker-splonked on the Tarmac with your propeller buried six feet under.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

" Trust me, being sacked isn't all bad http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/12/02/do0202.xml", Daily Telegraph, 2 December 2004, p. 26.
On being sacked from the Tory front bench.
2000s, 2004

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen photo
Kent Hovind photo

“In Daniel 7, Daniel had a vision where “the four winds of the heavens strove upon the great sea. And four beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another” (vv. 2-3). In the vision, Daniel saw a lion with eagle’s wings, a bear with three ribs in its mouth, a leopard with four wings, and a terrible beast with iron teeth and ten horns (v. 7). Bible scholars have speculated on the meaning of this passage for centuries. Some think the four beasts in this chapter represent a rehash of the first four empires from Babylon to the Roman Empire; while others think it is all yet in the future. I’m no scholar but here is my opinion: I (and many Bible scholars) think the four beasts are four world powers that will “strive” for world power (domination?) at the end of time before the one with ten horns finally becomes dominant. I think the four beasts are interpreted as follows: The lion sometimes standing like a man with eagle’s wings (v. 4) represents England (whose symbol as always been the lion) and America (whose symbol is the eagle) united, as one of four major end-time powers. The eagle’s wings “were plucked” and “it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it” (v. 4). My best guess is that America will soon cease to be a world power (wings plucked) but there will still be enough of a godly influence that the English/American alliance will have some “heart” or compassion and maybe even be able to finally “take a stand” for God in the wicked world. I think the bear (v. 5) is Russia (whose symbol is the bear) and the three ribs in its mouth represent three countries it has dominated or “eaten,” such as Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, or perhaps Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia. The leopard with four wings (v. 6) could be some sort of oriental alliance between China, Japan, Korea, and a Southeast Asia alliance (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, etc.). Verse 6 says, “dominion was given to it.” Many certainly feel that China is soon to be the major economic (and military) power in the world. If they could get a military or economic alliance with some of the other oriental nations mentioned, they would indeed be a force to be reckoned with! No animal is named for the fourth beast. It is only described as being dreadful, terrible, strong exceedingly, having great iron teeth, different from all other beasts and having ten horns. As I said earlier there are three options from what I can see for this beast. It is either (A) the European Common Market or a future similar alliance; or (B) 10 world regions and (C) some sort of alliance of Muslim nations around the Middle East or the world. I tend to go with option (C)”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 94-95

Sathya Sai Baba photo
Archibald Alexander photo

“All my theology is reduced to this narrow compass — "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."”

Archibald Alexander (1772–1851) American theologian

As quoted in Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 580.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo
Omar Bradley photo
George Lucas photo
Harun Yahya photo
Thich Nhat Hanh photo
George W. Bush photo

“The nation, the nation sends its love and compassion for everybody who is here. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for making the nation proud, and may God bless America.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, I Can Hear You, the Rest of the World Hears You (September 2001)

Jacques Derrida photo

“No one can deny the suffering, fear, or panic, the terror or fright that can seize certain animals and that we humans can witness. … No doubt either, then, of there being within us the possibility of giving vent to a surge of compassion, even if it is then misunderstood, repressed, or denied, held at bay. … The two centuries I have been referring to somewhat casually in order to situate the present in terms of this tradition have been those of an unequal struggle, a war (whose inequality could one day be reversed) being waged between, on the one hand, those who violate not only animal life but even and also this sentiment of compassion, and, on the other hand, those who appeal for an irrefutable testimony to this pity. War is waged over the matter of pity. This war is probably ageless but, and here is my hypothesis, it is passing through a critical phase. We are passing through that phase, and it passes through us. To think the war we find ourselves waging is not only a duty, a responsibility, an obligation, it is also a necessity, a constraint that, like it or not, directly or indirectly, no one can escape. Henceforth more than ever. And I say “to think” this war, because I believe it concerns what we call “thinking.””

The animal looks at us, and we are naked before it. Thinking perhaps begins there.
Specters of Marx (1993), The Animal That Therefore I Am, 1997

Philip Pullman photo
Hermann Hesse photo
Vitruvius photo
Washington Irving photo

“Free-livers on a small scale, who are prodigal within the compass of a guinea.”

Washington Irving (1783–1859) writer, historian and diplomat from the United States

The Stout Gentleman http://web.archive.org/20020106095151/www.geocities.com/cyber_explorer99/.

Jason Aldean photo
Philip José Farmer photo
Colley Cibber photo

“Prithee don’t screw your wit beyond the compass of good manners.”

Love's Last Shift, Act II, sc. i (1696).

Chris Smith photo

“We need to re-triple efforts for the defenseless unborn child and for their mothers, equally. They are co-victims. This movement has always been about compassion, empathy, and it has not changed. It has only gotten stronger. It has been tested in fire repeatedly during the Clinton administration and Obama especially. This is not a time to rest – just the opposite.”

Chris Smith (1953) New Jersey politician from the United States

Rep. Chris Smith: ‘Planned Parenthood is Child Abuse Incorporated’ https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/rep.-chris-smith-pro-life-movement-has-huge-opportunity-under-trump-planned (January 23, 2017)

Vitruvius photo
Lennox Lewis photo

“The danger of a closed mind is that it can also leave good things like love, compassion and reason on its outside.”

Lennox Lewis (1965) British-Canadian boxer

Lennox Lewis (From his Twitter account)

Wyndham Lewis photo

“For me, the essence of veganism is compassion … not just compassion for animals, but all the way around.”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Compassion, the Ultimate Ethic: An Exploration of Veganism (Wellingborough: Thorsons, 1985), p. 44.

Alfred de Zayas photo
Mahendra Chaudhry photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo

“Because of his compassion Owen was always in trouble with his partners. They would have much preferred a tough, down-to-earth manager who would get a days work out of the little bastards.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 1, p. 30 (On Robert Owen)

Thorstein Veblen photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Theodore Dalrymple photo
Lyndall Urwick photo

“Planning is essentially the analysis and measurement of materials and processes in advance of the event and the perfection of records so that we may know exactly where we are at any given moment. In short it is attempting to steer each operation and department by chart and compass and chronometer – not “by guess and by God.””

Lyndall Urwick (1891–1983) British management consultant

Source: 1950s, The pattern of management, 1956, p. 85; Cited in: " Lyndall Fownes Urwick http://www.managers-net.com/Biography/biograph7.html," at managers-net.com, 2016.

Waheeda Rehman photo

“It was important to have compassion, [which, she added, came ]] partly from acknowledging we are one.”

Waheeda Rehman (1938) Indian actress

Quote, Take risks and don't fear failure: Waheeda Rehman

Ivan Goncharov photo
George Holmes Howison photo
Henry Adams photo
Vitruvius photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo

“Compassion and pridelessness”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume III: Solace for the Heart in Difficult Times (Hari-Nama Press, 2000)

Margaret Thatcher photo
Báb photo
John Steinbeck photo
Alfred de Zayas photo
Charlize Theron photo

“I grew up on a farm in South Africa, so I’ve always been surrounded by animals. I was raised by a mother who always had great compassion and respect toward animals. It was instilled in me. I grew up that way. So when I see dogs or other animals suffer, it’s just been something close to my heart.”

Charlize Theron (1975) film actress and producer, former fashion model

"Charlize Theron Would Never Wear Her Dog", in peta2.com (18 July 2011) https://www.peta2.com/news/charlize-theron-would-never-wear-her-dog/

Rudyard Kipling photo
John Ruysbroeck photo
Samuel Smiles photo

“Trust in and value the benefit of God’s compassion and identification.”

John Townsend (1952) Canadian clinical psychologist and author

Where Is God (2009, Thomas Nelson publishers)

Camille Paglia photo
Edmund Waller photo

“A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair;
Give me but what this riband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.”

Edmund Waller (1606–1687) English poet and politician

On a Girdle; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Peter Singer photo
Tenzin Gyatso photo

“We need a little more compassion, and if we cannot have it then no politician or even a magician can save the planet.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

As quoted in Words Of Wisdom: Selected Quotes by His Holiness the Dalai Lama (2001) edited by Margaret Gee, p. 49.

Tsunetomo Yamamoto photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
Bonnie-Jill Laflin photo
Robert Charles Winthrop photo

“There are no points of the compass on the chart of true patriotism.”

Robert Charles Winthrop (1809–1894) American politician

Letter to Boston Commercial Club (1879).

Theodore Dalrymple photo

“Blanket compassion will shift the distribution decisively towards the manipulative end of the spectrum, and may paradoxically decrease the compassion with which the genuinely despairing are treated: for they are apt to get lost in the great mass of pseudo-distress and manipulation, and often their conduct draws less attention precisely because it is less attention-seeking.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Theodore Dalrymple on Terence Rattigan, Suicide and Prison - or how incontinent compassion has become a Keynesian stimulus to the economy of the caring profession http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001768.php (April 18, 2008).
The Social Affairs Unit (2006 - 2008)

Donald J. Trump photo

“We are going to be considerate and compassionate to everyone. But my greatest compassion will be for our own struggling citizens.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, July, (21 July 2016)

Arnold J. Toynbee photo

“Compassion is the desire that moves the individual self to widen the scope of its self-concern to embrace the whole of the universal self.”

Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) British historian, author of A Study of History

The Toynbee-Ikeda Dialogue: Man Himself Must Choose (1976).

John Donne photo

“If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, stanza 7

Philip Kapleau photo
Henry Adams photo
George W. Bush photo
Aung San Suu Kyi photo
Sam Harris photo
David Eugene Smith photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Francis Bacon photo

“Our single purpose was to walk through snow
With faces swung to their prodigious North
Like compass iron.”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

"Polar Exploration"
The Still Centre (1939)

John Dear photo
Ben Stein photo

“Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place- science leads you to killing people.”

Ben Stein (1944) actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

Ben Stein interviewed by Paul Crouch Jr. on Trinity Broadcasting Network, First To Know with Paul Crouch Jr., April 21, 2008, 21 April 2008, 2008-04-27 http://www.tbn.org/video_portal/?which=bts,

Orson Scott Card photo
Robert F. Kennedy photo
Tenzin Gyatso photo

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

As quoted in Meditations for Living In Balance: Daily Solutions for People Who Do Too Much (2000) by Anne Wilson Schaef, p. 11.

Julian of Norwich photo
Colin Wilson photo
George Holmes Howison photo
B.K.S. Iyengar photo

“The compass is ourselves. So we are able to infer that there is a universal reality in ourselves that aligns us with a universal reality that is everywhere.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p. 8

William Hazlitt photo

“The thing is plain. All that men really understand is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know and motives to study or practise. The rest is affectation and imposture.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On the Ignorance of the Learned"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Sam Harris photo

“Myself not ignorant of woe,
Compassion I have learned to show.”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 31

N. K. Jemisin photo
Robert F. Kennedy photo

“Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Speech at the University of Kansas at Lawrence http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/RFK-Speeches/Remarks-of-Robert-F-Kennedy-at-the-University-of-Kansas-March-18-1968.aspx (18 March 1968)

Paul Watson photo

“We are pirates of compassion hunting down, hunting down and destroying pirates of profit.”

Paul Watson (1950) Canadian environmental activist

Worldfest video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnhqmF-RBu4
quote honored on XOEarth award http://xoearth.org/humpback-whale/