Compassion Quotes

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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

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.

The purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

It is better that a judge should lean on the side of compassion than severity.

Miguel de Cervantes

Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.

Charles Dickens

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The motivation of all religious practice is similar: love, sincerity, honesty. The way of life of practically all religious persons is consistent. The teachings of tolerance, love, and compassion are the same.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

The thirst for powerful sensations takes the upper hand both over fear and over compassion for the grief of others.

As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked — and rightly so — what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Theology reminded me that, however diabolical the act, it did not turn the perpetrator into a demon. We had to distinguish between the deed and the perpetrator, between the sinner and the sin, to hate and condemn the sin while being filled with compassion for the sinner.

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

Once you encourage the thought of compassion in your mind, once it becomes active, then your attitude towards others changes automatically.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

In one variant, "On the day He created the heavens and the earth, Allah Almighty created a hundred mercies, each mercy equal to what is between the heaven and the earth, and He put one mercy on the earth by which a mother has compassion for her child and wild animals and birds for each other. On the Day of Rising, He will perfect them with this mercy."

In order for us to be able to love, we need to have faith, because faith is love in action and love in action is service. In order for us to be able to love, we have to see and touch. Faith in action through prayer, faith in action through service: each is the same thing, the same love, the same compassion.

It is not enough to be compassionate. You must act. There are two aspects to action. One is to overcome the distortions and afflictions of your own mind, that is, in terms of calming and eventually dispelling anger. This is action out of compassion. The other is more social, more public. When something needs to be done in the world to rectify the wrongs, if one is really concerned with benefitting others, one needs to be engaged, involved.

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.

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

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Unfortunately, love and compassion have been omitted from too many spheres of social interaction for too long. Usually confined to family and home, their practice in public life is considered impractical, even naive. This is tragic.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Since we desire the true happiness that is brought about by a calm mind, and such peace of mind arises only from having a compassionate attitude, we need to make a concerted effort to develop 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

Almighty and eternal Lord God, the great Creator of heaven and earth, and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; look down from heaven in pity and compassion upon me thy servant, who humbly prostrate myself before thee.

George Washington

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

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

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