Showing Compassion Quotes

So if we love someone, we should train in being able to listen. By listening with calm and understanding, we can ease the suffering of another person. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Many exiles leave the mainstream church and engage in the kinds of things we've looked at already: living an authentic life, struggling for global justice, showing compassion, pursuing vocation as a way of doing God's work. But often they do it alone, imagining that it's either the conventional church or no church at all. ~ Michael Frost

We, the United States, have to be guilty. We have to be guilty. We have to be underperforming. We have to be not showing compassion or dignity or whatever code word is used to transmit the notion that we're mean-spirited, that we're selfish, and that we're probably bigoted and racist and don't want people here like that. ~ Rush Limbaugh

As human beings we each have a responsibility to care for humanity. Expressing concern for others brings inner strength and deep satisfaction. As social animals, human beings need friendship, but friendship doesn't come from wealth and power, but from showing compassion and concern for others. ~ Dalai Lama

Adversity can bring us closer to God, with a renewed and enlightened appreciation for prayer and Atonement, which covers pain and suffering in all their manifestations. [Those] who suffer tragedy first-hand often experience increased capacity for love, compassion, and understanding. They become the first, last, and often the most effective responders in giving comfort and showing compassion to others. ~ Richard C. Edgley

And the second [thing about the CBS EVENING NEWS that stands out in the mind of Michael J. Fox] was something Katie did later in the interview, as the drugs kicked in and the tremors segued into the jerkiness of dyskinesias. Somewhere in the contortions of making a point, my left arm detached the microphone clip from my jacket lapel. With no fuss and hardly a break in conversation or eye contact, she calmly leaned over and refastened it. Neither of us commented on it, but it was such an empathetic gesture, so far from anything patronizing or pitying, a simple kindness that allowed me the dignity to carry on making a point more important than the superficiality of my physical circumstance ...
... One thing was abundantly clear though, whether or not she was able to forget how much she liked me: with that single act of consideration, she made it abundantly clear how much she loved her father. ~ Michael J. Fox

The Metropolitan Museum of Art some time ago held a display of contemporary art at which $52,000 was awarded to American sculptors, painters, and artists in allied fields. The award for the best painting went to the canvas of an Illinois artist. It was described as "a macabre, detailed work showing a closed door bearing a funeral wreath." Equally striking was the work's title: "That which I should have done, I did not do." ~ James Keller

so your father told you once
that you were his princess
you won't see the castle
you cannot find your prince
and now you've grown a lot
and your dress don't fit right
your daddy's not a hero
he stole your chariot

so here you are in pieces
trying to prove to us it's real
the softness of your smile
and the lies you want to feel
the scales beneath your skin
are showing off today
there's evil in your heart
and it wants out to play

there's evil in your heart
and it wants out to play
there's evil in your heart

and I have made a home here
for me
you'll burn it down with your fantasy ~ Hayley Williams

Manners require showing consideration of all human beings, not just the ones to whom one is close. ~ Judith Martin

Writing is a strong easement for perplexity. My life is a map, spread out with all the rivers and hills showing. ~ Emily Carr

Danny was unfazed at the size of the large-stomached man, with hairy arms waving about like a pizza chef, all violent gestures and shouting. His crude, pinch-faced wife spat salivated swear words at him. She was in her thirties and behaving like a grounded teenager, screaming at him to leave her property.
"One hundred thousand pesetas please." Danny took a bony, female fist to his cheek, jarring him. He shook it off.
"Two hundred thousand now."
She jabbed at him again, as her fist poked towards his nose, he head-butted it. She recoiled in pain gasping and nursing her hand. The husband, a chubby, but solid Valencian, went ape-shit and lobbed a hairy, dimpled fist at him, causing Danny to shift on his feet. He pulled his head out of the way with the skill of a middleweight. The man drew his fist from three o'clock and blasted scarred knuckles towards his face again. Danny's reaction was lightning; he caught the fist and held firm, flipped down the hood, his face showing something new. The man recoiled, recognising grim determination and knew this man would never give up. ~ Mark Shearman

( ... ) I let go, crying and unable to stop because God was such a dirty crook, contemptible skunk, that's what he was for doing that thing to that woman. Come down out of the skies, you God, come on down and I'll hammer your face all over the city of Los Angeles, you miserable unpardonable prankster. If it wasn't for you, this woman would not have been so maimed, and neither would the world, ( ... ) ~ John Fante

The highest religion is to rise to universal brother hood; aye to consider all creatures your equals. ~ Guru Nanak

Bush promised a foreign policy of humility and a domestic policy of compassion. He has given us a foreign policy of arrogance and a domestic policy that is cynical, myopic and cruel. ~ Joe Klein

There has appeared in our time a particular class of books and articles which I sincerely and solemnly think may be called the silliest ever known among men ... these things are about nothing; they are about what is called Success. On every bookstall, in every magazine, you may find works telling people how to succeed. They are books showing men how to succeed in everything; they are written by men who cannot even succeed in writing books. To begin with, of course, there is no such thing as Success. Or, if you like to put it so, there is nothing that is not successful. That a thing is successful merely means that it is; a millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a donkey in being a donkey ... I really think that the people who buy these books (if any people do buy them) have a moral, if not a legal, right to ask for their money back. ~ G.K. Chesterton

And so, you can do hundreds and hundreds of studies showing a general factor and just so long as you restrict your populations, your testing materials and the kinds of situations you look at, you can keep finding the same wrong thing again and again. ~ Robert Sternberg

What Caul liked most about Tom was his kindness. Kindness was not valued back in Grimsby, where the older boys were encouraged to torment the younger ones, who would grow up to torment another batch of youngsters in their turn. "Good practice for life," Uncle said. "Hard knocks, that's all the world's about!" But maybe Uncle had never met anyone like Tom, who was kind to other people and seemed to expect nothing more than kindness in return. ~ Philip Reeve

The path of compassion is to bring more happiness and smiles into the world and to eliminate the pains and cries from the world. ~ Amit Ray

Don't become a Buddhist. The world doesn't need Buddhist. Do practice Compassion. The world needs more compassion. ~ Dalai Lama

Hundreds of experiments into the misinformation effect have been conducted, and people have been convinced of all sorts of things. Screwdrivers become wrenches, white men become black men, and experiences involving other people get traded back and forth. In one study, [Elizabeth] Loftus convinced people they were once lost in a shopping mall as a child. She had subjects read four essays provided by family members, but the one about getting lost as a kid was fake. A quarter of the subjects incorporated the fake story into their memory and even provided details about the fictional event that were not included in the narrative. Loftus even convinced people they shook hands with Bugs Bunny, who isn't a Disney character, when they visited Disney World as a kid, just by showing them a fake advertisement where a child was doing the same. She altered the food preferences of subjects in one experiment where she lied to people, telling them they had reported becoming sick from eating certain things as a child. A few weeks later, when offered those same foods, those people avoided them. In other experiments, she implanted memories of surviving drowning and fending off animal attacks - none of them real, all of them accepted into the autobiography of the subjects without resistance. ~ David McRaney

Compassion dissolves ignorance. ~ Alaric Hutchinson

Understanding evil as the absence of Light does not require you to become passive, or to disregard evil actions or evil behavior. If you see a child being abused, or a people being oppressed, for example, it is appropriate that you do what you can to protect the child, or to aid the people, but if there is not compassion in your heart also for those who abuse and oppress - for those who have no compassion - do you not become like them? Compassion is being moved to and by acts of the heart, to and by the energy of love. ~ Gary Zukav

I know you don't want to feel superior, but it is so easy to control us."
He snorted his disagreement. "I have failed to control you at every turn. You have no idea how often I wanted to force your obedience when you placed yourself in danger. I should have gone with my instincts…but no, I allowed you to go back to the inn."
"Your love for me caused you to pull back." She reached out to touch his hair. "Isn't that how it should be between two people? If you really love who I am, and you want me to be happy, then you know I have to do what comes naturally to me, what I feel is right."
His finger traced down her throat, through the deep valley between her breasts, making her shiver with sudden heat. "That is true, little one, but that is also true of my needs. You can do no other than to make me happy. My happiness is completely dependent on whether or not you are safe."
Raven couldn't help smiling. "Somehow I think your devious nature is showing. Perhaps you need to examine human ingenuity. You rely heavily on your gifts, Mikhail, but humans must find other ways. We are uniting two worlds. If we decide to have a child…"
He stirred restlessly, his dark eyes glittering.
She caught the imperious Carpathian decree before he could censor his thoughts. You must.
"If we decide someday to have a child," she persisted, ignoring his authority, "if it is male, he will be raised in both worlds. And if it is a girl, she will be raised with free will and a ~ Christine Feehan

I saw the world and its lack of compassion, its harsh, grating judgment, and its cold, resentful eyes. ~ Tahereh Mafi

One of my favorite passages in 'Leaves of Grass,' that breathless, exuberant poem so rich and full of innocence and joy and generosity and compassion, is 'Mannahatta.' ~ Cathleen Schine

There's never an excuse to be cruel. When you meet someone new, think first about all the good and the sad and the wonder and the worry that's probably blooming in their heart. Just like yours. ~ Natalie Lloyd

A very hurting thing for Black Americans - to feel that we can't love our enemies. People forget what a great tradition we have as African-Americans in the practice of forgiveness and compassion. And if we neglect that tradition, we suffer. ~ Bell Hooks

Compassion grows in the recognition that we are all the same.

If you can't see some part of yourself in every single person you encounter, then you're not looking closely enough, at the person or at yourself. ~ Scott Stabile

There's no earthly way of knowing Which direction they are going! There's no knowing where they're rowing, Or which way the river's flowing! Not a speck of light is showing, So the danger must be growing, For the rowers keep on rowing, And they're certainly not showing Any signs that they are slowing. . . . ~ Roald Dahl

It takes compassion to truly understand another person. ~ David Kaczynski

Unless and until you have developed a heart inundated with compassion, do not sit on the seat of judgement. ~ Sri Chinmoy

Teaching my kids to give back is an essential part of parenting. It's not something that's optional. Compassion is one of the basic values that I want my children to have: that if they see a need, whether it's around the corner or thousands of miles of away, they should feel motivated to do whatever they can to help. ~ Kate Snow

We can, each of us, be likened to houses made entirely of colorfully stained-glass. They sparkle and shine when the sun is on them, however when the darkness sets in, their greatest beauty is revealed only by a Light from within. ~ Raymond D. Longoria Jr.

In fact, in one sense one could define compassion as the feeling of unbearableness at the sight of other people's suffering, other sentient beings' suffering. And in order to generate that feeling one must first have an appreciation of the seriousness or intensity of another's suffering. So, I think that the more fully one understands suffering, and the various kinds of suffering that we are subject to, the deeper will be one's level of compassion. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

I cry for those not yet dead. ~ Frank Herbert

If you are self-motivated, wow, this world is tailored for you. The boundaries are all gone. But if you're not self-motivated, this world will be a challenge because the walls, ceilings and floors that protected people are also disappearing. That is what I mean when I say "it is a 401(k) world." Government will do less for you. Companies will do less for you. Unions can do less for you. There will be fewer limits, but also fewer guarantees. Your specific contribution will define your specific benefits much more. Just showing up will not cut it. ~ Thomas Friedman

My parents' selfless affection and dedication nourished and prepared me to receive the love of my guru or spiritual father, Swami Prabhupada. My parents prepared the soil in which my guru sowed the seeds of his compassion. ~ Radhanath Swami

At twelve o'clock, when Aureli-ano, José had bled to death and Carmelita Montiel found that the cards showing her future were blank, more than four hundred men had filed past the theater and discharged their revolvers into the abandoned body of Captain Aquiles Ricardo. A patrol had to use a wheelbarrow to carry the body, which was heavy with lead and fell apart like a water-soaked loaf of bread. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

It only takes a split second to smile and forget, yet to someone that needed it, it can last a lifetime. ~ Steve Maraboli

No peace can be lasting unless the humans become wise enough to need no borders, which can happen only if you all stop feeling threatened by your own kind and start fostering a sense of genuine trust for each other. I would rather be killed by you, the human, my own kind, than be killed by a disease. There is bliss in being killed by your own people. Once you recognize this simple revelation in your heart, then only can there be peace in the world. This doesn't mean that you are giving permission to your fellow human to kill you for no reason, rather you are showing in practice the absurd extent of your trust upon that person. Then it becomes extremely hard for the other person to see you as an enemy. ~ Abhijit Naskar

You have to get hurt . That is how you learn . The strongest people out there , the ones who laugh the hardest , those are the people who have fought the toughest battles . But they've decided longback , they're not going to let anything down . They are showing the world who's the boss here ~ Anonymous

A glass of water has no value on its own, but the moment it quenches the thirst of an exhausted person, it turns more valuable than gold. Be a glass of water and quench the thirst of others. A glass of water doesn't need any fancy introduction to be hailed important, it doesn't need pomp and ceremony to be seen as significant, it doesn't need any fancy attire to appear appealing, all it needs to do is be there for the thirsty. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Strong families serve society by bringing forth healthy children and maturing young adults, by being a rich source of a compassion for sick members, of support for others in time of crisis and of care for the elderly and the dying. ~ Vincent Nichols

Look upon him who shows you your faults as a revealer of treasure: seek his company who checks and chides you, the sage who is wise in reproof: it fares well and not ill with him who seeks such company. ~ Gautama Buddha

If our goal is perfection rather than growth, it is unlikely that we are willing to go back, because it requires a level of self-empathy - the ability to look at our own actions with understanding and compassion; to understand our experiences in the context in which they happened and to do all this without judgment. I call this ability to reflect on our own actions with empathy "grounding. ~ Brene Brown

True benevolence, or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathises with the distress of every creature capable of sensation ~ Joseph Addison