Compassion Quotes

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Joan was a being so uplifted from the ordinary run of mankind that she finds no equal in a thousand years. She embodied the natural goodness and valour of the human race in unexampled perfection. Unconquerable courage, infinite compassion, the virtue of the simple, the wisdom of the just, shone forth in her. She glorifies as she freed the soil from which she sprang.

Winston Churchill

I believe that at every level of society the key to a happier world is the growth of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Let me be suffered to extend
Compassion to a hapless friend.

Love, compassion and concern for others are real sources of happiness. If you have these in abundance, you will not be disturbed even by the most uncomfortable circumstances. If you nurse hatred, however, you will not be happy even in the lap of luxury. Thus, if we really want happiness, we must widen the sphere of love. This is both religious thinking and basic common sense.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.

A man of good sense but of little faith, whose compassion seemed to lead him to church as often as he went there, said to me; 'that he liked to have concerts, and fairs, and churches, and other public amusements go on.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves." "You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these last twenty years at least.

Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

The essence of compassion is a desire to alleviate the suffering of others and to promote their well-being

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

The real test of compassion is not what we say in abstract discussions but how we conduct ourselves in daily life.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

True compassion is not just an emotional response, but a firm commitment founded on reason. Therefore, a truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change, even if they behave negatively. Through universal altruism, you develop a feeling of responsibility for others: the wish to help them actively overcome their problems.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.

Compassion is the wish for another being to be free from suffering; love is wanting them to have happiness.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, human liberty as the source of national action, the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas

John F. Kennedy

For a practitioner of love and compassion, an enemy is one of the most important teachers. Without an enemy you cannot practice tolerance, and without tolerance you cannot build a sound basis of compassion.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Fear, O Achilles, the wrath of heaven; think on your own father and have compassion upon me, who am the more pitiable

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, 14th Dalai Lama

If each of us can learn to relate to each other more out of compassion, with a sense of connection to each other and a deep recognition of our common humanity, and more important, to teach this to our children, I believe that this can go a long way in reducing many of the conflicts and problems that we see today.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own.

Compassion can be put into practice if one recognizes the fact that every human being is a member of humanity and the human family regardless of differences in religion, culture, color and creed. Deep down there is no difference.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

For a person who cherishes compassion and love, the practice of tolerance is essential, and for that, and enemy is indispinsable. So we should be grateful to our enemies, for it is they who can best help us to develop a tranquil mind.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

The essence of any religion is good heart. Sometimes I call love and compassion a universal religion. This is my religion.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Sometimes, in difficult circumstances, one can confuse compassion with love.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón