Quotes on Compassion

Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allowing ourselves to move gently toward what scares us.

It is compassion, then, that is the best protection; it is also, as the great masters of the past have always known, the source of all healing.

As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest.

We should only affect compassion, and carefully avoid having any.

Modern education is premised strongly on materialistic values. It is vital that when educating our children's brains that we do not neglect to educate their hearts, a key element of which has to be the nurturing of our compassionate nature.

You desire that which exceeds my humble powers, but I trust in the compassion and mercy of the All-powerful God.

GNP measures neither our courage, our wisdom neither our compassion. It measures everything except what makes life worthwhile

The first step in spiritual life is to have compassion. A person who is kind and loving never needs to go searching for God. God rushes toward any heart that beats with compassion-it is God's favorite place.

I want you to find the poor here, right in your own home first. And begin love there. Be that good news to your own people.

Understanding and Love are not two separate things, but just one. To develop understanding, you have to practice looking at all living beings with the eyes of compassion. When you understand, you cannot help but love. And when you love, you naturally act in a way that can relieve the suffering of people.

To possess both wisdom and compassion is the heart of our human revolution. If you have wisdom alone and lack compassion, it will be a cold, perverse wisdom. If you have compassion alone and lack wisdom, you cannot give happiness to others. You are even likely to lead them in the wrong direction, and you won't be able to achieve your own happiness.

What is love? It is not simply compassion, not simply kindness. In compassion there are two: the one who suffers and the one who feels compassion. In kindness there are two: the one who gives and the one who receives. But in love there is only one; the two join, unite, become inseparable. The I and the you vanish. To love means to lose oneself in the beloved.

The first beneficiary of compassion is always oneself. When compassion, or warmheartedness, arises in us and our focus shifts away from our own narrow self-interest, it is as if we open an inner door. It reduces fear, boosts confidence and brings us inner strength. By reducing distrust, it opens us to others and brings us a sense of connection to others, and sense of purpose and meaning in life.

Rather than converting people from one organised religion to another organised religion, we should try to convert people from misery to happiness, from bondage to liberation and from cruelty to compassion.

Compassion for myself is the most powerful healer of them all.

The experience of helping a fellow man in danger, or even of training in a realistic manner to be ready to give this help, tends to change the balance of power in a youth's inner life with the result that compassion can become the master motive.

I work really hard at trying to see the big picture and not getting stuck in ego. I believe we're all put on this planet for a purpose, and we all have a different purpose... When you connect with that love and that compassion, that's when everything unfolds.

To be brave without compassion, generous without moderation, and rule without refraining from being first in the world, are certain deaths.

See others as yourself. See families as your family. See towns as your town. See countries as your country. See worlds as your world.

The highest benevolence acts without purpose.

I have three treasures that I cherish. The first is compassion. The second is moderation. The third is not claiming to be first in the world.