Compassion quotes
2.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside compassion — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"If you develop a pure and sincere motivation, if you are motivated by a wish to help on the basis of kindness, compassion, and respect, then you can carry on any kind of work, in any field, and function more effectively."
"A spoon cannot taste of the food it carries. Likewise, a foolish man cannot understand the wise man´s wisdom even if he associates with a sage."
"People often expect the other person to respond first in a positive way, instead of taking the initiative to create that possibility. I feel that's wrong; it can act as a barrier that just promotes a feeling of isolation from others. To overcome feelings of isolation and loneliness, your underlying attitude makes a tremendous difference - approaching others with the thought of compassion in your mind is the best way."
"The United States is doing our part by increasing the number of refugees we resettle and I want again to commend Angela [Merkel], and more importantly, the German people for the extraordinary leadership and compassion that you have shown in the face of what I know is a very difficult challenge."
"In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves."
"Compassion isn't some kind of self-improvement project or ideal that we're trying to live up to. Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves, all those imperfections that we don't even want to look at."
"Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves."
"For there are deeds which have no form, sufferings which have no tongue."
"It were much better that a sentient being should never have existed, than that it should have existed only to endure unmitigated misery."
"We can’t practice compassion with other people if we can’t treat ourselves kindly."
"All people are endowed with the faculty of compassion, and for this reason can develop the humanitarian spirit."
"Conservatives understand that the power that binds our republic together is fierce independence held high on the shoulders of compassion."
"Compassion for our parents is the true sign of maturity."
"Radical self-care is what we've been longing for, desperate for, our entire lives-friendship with our own hearts."
"He spoke wistfully of a sudden leaving, a breaking of old ties, a flight into a strange world, ending in this dreary valley, and Ettie listened, her dark eyes gleaming with pity and with sympathy - those two qualities which may turn so rapidly and so naturally to love."
"Love is the dove of peace, the spirit of brotherhood, it is tenderness and compassion, forgiveness and tolerance."
"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension."
"Compassion is an essential element of love."
"If you are leaving that sorrowful place with hate and anger against men, you are worthy of compassion; if you leave it with good will, gentleness and peace, you are better than any of us."
"Let us have compassion for those under chastisement. Alas, who are we ourselves? Who am I and who are you? Whence do we come and is it quite certain that we did nothing before we were born? This earth is not without some resemblance to a gaol. Who knows but that man is a victim of divine justice? Look closely at life. It is so constituted that one senses punishment everywhere."
