“When the suffering of another creature causes you to feel pain, do not submit to the initial desire to flee from the suffering one, but on the contrary, come closer, as close as you can to him who suffers, and try to help him.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 214)
Compassion Quotes
“Often the hurt that weighs you down functions as a wall that stops you from fully engaging with the present moment. Unprocessed hurt also limits the flow of compassion because too much of our energy is focused on surviving one day at a time – this directly hinders the ability to deepen interpersonal connections.”
Yung Pueblo
“Do not raise your hand against your brother, and do not spill the blood of any living creatures who live on earth, neither human beings nor pets nor wild animals nor birds. In the depth of your soul some divine voice stops you from spilling this blood. There is life in it. You cannot return this life.”
Alphonse Lamartine, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 184)
“A wise man was asked, ‘Is there a single word which you can follow throughout all your life?’ And the wise man answered, ‘There is such a word. This is shu.’ And the meaning of this word is, ‘If we do not want certain things to be done to us, we should not do such things to others.'”
Chinese Wisdom, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 152)
“Compassion for animals is so closely connected with kindness that you can truly say that a person cannot be kind if he is cruel to animals. Compassion for animals comes from the same source as compassion toward people.”
Arthur Schopenhauer, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 139)
“Now that I’m suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims… and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don’t know any of these people. But—how can I put this?—I’m almost… drawn to them.”
Morrie Schwartz, via Tuesdays With Morrie (Page 50)
“All living creatures fear pain and death. Try to understand yourself in every living creature: do not torture and do not kill. Stop suffering and dearth. All living creatures want what you want; all living creatures praise their lives.”
Dhammapada, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 82)
“The killing and eating of animals is a prejudice accepted by those who think that animals were given to people by God to eat, so that there is nothing wrong in killing them. This is not true. It may be written in some books that it is not a sin to kill an animal, but it is written in our own hearts more clearly than in any books—that we should take pity on animals in the same way as we do on each other. And we all know this, if we do not deaden the voice of our conscience inside of us.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 64)
“There is almost no situation in which hatred helps. Yet almost every situation is made better by love—or empathy, understanding, appreciation—even situations in which you are in opposition to someone. And who knows, you might just get some of that love back.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 305)
“This really is my life’s work, to go where there is suffering. I suppose, like us all, I’m learning how to deal with the suffering of the world inside myself… to deal with my own pain and most importantly to still have the ability to be proactive.”
Kayla Mueller, via Becoming Wise (Page 263)
“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, via Sunbeams (Page 115)
“The shadow does not leave when it is attacked; it heals when it is forgiven. We do not take off our shadowy mask in the presence of someone who blames us, but rather in the presence of someone who says through words or behavior, ‘I know this is not who you are.’ We miraculously heal in the presence of someone who believes in our light even when we are lost in our darkness. And when we learn to see others in the light of their true being, whether they are showing us that light or not, then we have the power to work that miracle for them.”
Marianne Williamson, The Shadow Effect (Page 175)