quotes about Sympathy
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Sometimes,' said Pooh, 'the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.
-- A. A. Milne -
I think I feel rather differently about sympathy to what seems the normal view. I like just to feel it is there, but not always expressed.
-- A. C. Benson -
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
-- AeschylusSource : "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.
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Bottled, was he?" Said Colonel Bantry, with an Englishman's sympathy for alcoholic excess. "Oh, well, can't judge a fellow by what he does when he's drunk? When I was at Cambridge, I remember I put a certain utensil - well - well, nevermind.
-- Agatha Christie -
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It is the right of our people to organize to oppose any law and any part of the Constitution with which they are not in sympathy.
-- Al Smith -
It's hard for me to think of others because I'm not particularly in sympathy with the music of this century.
-- Alan Hovhaness -
What would become of the world if the condemned started to confide their heartaches to the executioners?
-- Albert CamusSource : Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury (1845). “Zoe: The History of Two Lives”, p.90
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From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.
-- Albert Einstein -
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The double law of attraction and radiation or of sympathy and antipathy, of fixedness and movement, which is the principle of Creation, and the perpetual cause of life.
-- Albert Pike -
It is a man's sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man.
-- Albert Schweitzer -
At this very moment,... the most frightful horrors are taking place in every corner of the world. People are being crushed, slashed, disembowelled, mangled; their dead bodies rot and their eyes decay with the rest. Screams of pain and fear go pulsing through the air at the rate of eleven hundred feet per second. After travelling for three seconds they are perfectly inaudible. These are distressing facts; but do we enjoy life any the less because of them? Most certainly we do not.
-- Aldous Huxley -
Never elated while one man's oppress'd; Never dejected while another's blessed.
-- Alexander Pope -
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There are some situations which men understand by instinct, by which reason is powerless to explain; in such cases the greatest poet is he who gives utterance to the most natural and vehement outburst of sorrow. Those who hear the bitter cry are as much impressed as if they listened to an entire poem, and when th sufferer is sincere they are right in regarding his outburst as sublime.
-- Alexandre Dumas -
By the law of nature, there is no pleasure in suffering; but divine love, when it reigns in a heart, makes it take delight in its sufferings.
-- Alphonsus Liguori -
I have nothing but sympathy for the people who are forced to work with me. I'm better now at picking out those that want to play that game with me, and those that don't.
-- Alton Brown -
Accordingly, death is a harbor of peace for the just, but is believed a shipwreck for the wicked.
-- Ambrose -
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Sympathy wanting, all is wanting; its personal magnetism is the conductor of the sacred spark that lights our atoms, puts us m human communion, and gives us to company, conversation, and ourselves.
-- Amos Bronson Alcott -
I would rather be kept alive in the efficient if cold altruism of a large hospital than expire in a gush of warm sympathy in a small one.
-- Aneurin Bevan -
He who steps on stones is glad to feel the smallest spray of moss beneath his feet.
-- Anna Katharine Green -
A heart at leisure from itself, To soothe and sympathise
-- Anna Laetitia Waring -
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I ask Thee for a thankful love, Through constant watching wise, To meet the glad with joyful smiles, And to wipe the weeping eyes, And a heart at leisure from itself, To soothe and sympathize.
-- Anna Laetitia WaringSource : "Father I know that all my Life, Hymns and Meditations" by Anna Laetitia Waring, (p. 2), 1850.
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She left me, offended at my want of sympathy, and thinking, no doubt, that I envied her. I did not - at least, I firmly believed I did not.
-- Anne Bronte -
The professional must learn to be moved and touched emotionally, yet at the same time stand back objectively: I've seen a lot of damage done by tea and sympathy.
-- Anthony Storr -
Shed not for her a bitter tear; Nor give the heart to vain regret. Tis but the casket that lies here; the gem that fills it sparkles yet.
-- Belle Starr -
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Sympathy for victims is always counter-balanced by an equal and opposite feeling of resentment towards them.
-- Ben Elton -
The sympathy of sorrow is stronger than the sympathy of prosperity.
-- Benjamin Disraeli -
It is the will of God and Nature that these mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter into real life; 'tis rather an embrio state, a preparation for living; a man is not completely born until he be dead: Why then should we grieve that a new child is born among the immortals?
-- Benjamin Franklin -
Sympathy is something that shouldn't be bestowed upon the Yankees. Apparently it angers them.
-- Bob Feller -
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Though sympathy alone can't alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable.
-- Bram Stoker -
My guitar was loud as hell, and I had no sympathy for anybody else.
-- Brownie McGhee -
Nothing you love is lost. Not really. Things, people—they always go away, sooner or later. You can’t hold them, any more than you can hold moonlight. But if they’ve touched you, if they’re inside you, then they’re still yours. The only things you ever really have are the ones you hold inside your heart.
-- Bruce Coville -
Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.
-- C. S. Lewis -
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The delicate and infirm go for sympathy, not to the well and buoyant, but to those who have suffered like themselves.
-- Catharine Beecher -
September did not want to feel for the Marquess. That’s how villains get you, she knew. You feel badly for them, and next thing you know, you’re tied to train tracks. But her wild, untried heart opened up another bloom inside her, a dark branch heavy with fruit.
-- Catherynne M. Valente -
Could I tell them I was sorry their loved one was dead, when he’d tried to kill me? There was no rule of etiquette for this; even my grandmother would have been stymied.
-- Charlaine Harris -
Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral.
-- Charles Darwin -
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A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away-the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us-is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow.
-- Charles Dickens -
Sympathy is two hearts tugging at one load.
-- Charles Henry Parkhurst -
Jesus, Thou art all compassion, pure unbounded love Thou art; Visit us with Thy salvation, enter every trembling heart.
-- Charles WesleySource : 1747 'Love Divine', collected in Hymns for those that Seek...Redemption.
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I have a lot of sympathy for young people because I realize how disturbed I was. How would I deal with life in the future? What would I do for a living?
-- Clyde Tombaugh -
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We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression.
-- Confucius -
I have a theory because I was being beaten up a lot by people outside of school, it was almost like if I could make myself sick enough they'd take sympathy on me.
-- Daniel Johns -
In the land of the dying, sentences go unfinished, you know how they're going to end.
-- Daniel WallaceSource : Daniel Wallace (1999). “Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions”, Penguin Group USA
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There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.
-- Dante Alighieri -
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For some moments in life there are no words.
-- David Seltzer -
We must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living.
-- Davy CrockettSource : "The Life of Colonel David Crockett". Book by Edward Sylvester Ellis, 1884.
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California must be all American or all Chinese. We are resolved that it shall be American, and are prepared to make it so. May we not rely upon your sympathy and assistance?
-- Denis Kearney -
I believe that we must reach our brother, never toning down our fundamental oppositions, but meeting him when he asks to be met, with a reason for the faith that is in us, as well as with a loving sympathy for them as brothers.
-- Dorothy Day -
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Since this war began our sympathy has gone out to all the suffering people who have been dragged into it. Further hundreds of millions have become involved since I spoke at Limerick fortnight ago.
-- Eamon de Valera -
Each person's grief journey is unique as a fingerprint or a snowflake.
-- Earl A Grollman -
Next to love, Sympathy is the divinest passion of the human heart.
-- Edmund Burke -
Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
-- Edward Gibbon -
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Pity and need Make all flesh kin. There in no caste in blood.
-- Edwin ArnoldSource : Edwin Arnold (2016). “The Light of Asia, or the Great Renunciation (Mahâbhinishkramana): Being the Life and Teaching of Gautama, Prince of India and Founder of Buddhism (as Told in Verse by an Indian Buddhist)”, p.79, Routledge
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Pity makes the world soft to the weak and noble to the strong.
-- Edwin Arnold -
Public feeling now is apt to side with the persecuted, and our modern martyr is full as likely to be smothered with roses as with coals.
-- Edwin Hubbel Chapin -
Truth is the root, but human sympathy is the flower of practical life.
-- Edwin Hubbel Chapin -
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... the hey-day of a woman's life is on the shady side of fifty, when the vital forces heretofore expended in other ways are garnered in the brain, when their thoughts and sentiments flow out in broader channels, when philanthropy takes the place of family selfishness, and when from the depths of poverty and suffering the wail of humanity grows as pathetic to their ears as once was the cry of their own children.
-- Elizabeth Cady Stanton -
Everyone in the full enjoyment of all the blessings of his life, in his normal condition, feels some individual responsibility forthe poverty of others. When the sympathies are not blunted by any false philosophy, one feels reproached by one's own abundance.
-- Elizabeth Cady Stanton -
The inspired scribbler always has the gift for gossip in our common usage he or she can always inspire the commonplace with an uncommon flavor, and transform trivialities by some original grace or sympathy or humor or affection.
-- Elizabeth DrewSource : Elizabeth Drew (1964). “The Literature of Gossip”
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Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.
-- Emily Dickinson -
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If I can stop one heart from breaking…†Emily Dickinson If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.
-- Emily Dickinson -
No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.
-- Emma Goldman -
To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.
-- Erich Fromm -
The man who melts With social sympathy, though not allied, Is more worth than a thousand kinsmen.
-- Euripides -
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We pine for kindred natures To mingle with our own.
-- Felicia HemansSource : Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1872). “Poems of Felicia Hemans”, p.382
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If we endure all things patiently and with gladness, thinking on the sufferings of our Blessed Lord, and bearing all for the love of Him: herein is perfect joy.
-- Francis of Assisi -
It is difficult to define love; all we can say is, that in the soul it is a desire to rule, in the mind it is a sympathy, and in the body it is a hidden and delicate wish to possess what we love-Plus many mysteries.
-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld -
Even a witch wants sympathy.
-- Franny BillingsleySource : Franny Billingsley (2013). “Chime”, p.130, A&C Black
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No one really understands the grief or joy of another.
-- Franz Schubert -
The strongest have their moments of fatigue.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche -
If thou art something bring thy soul and interchange with mine. - Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller.
-- Friedrich Schiller -
I joined the Party definitely in 1923 after having already been in sympathy with it before.
-- Fritz Sauckel -
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The mark of man is initiative, but the mark of woman is cooperation. Man talks about freedom; woman about sympathy, love, sacrifice. Man cooperates with nature; woman cooperates with God. Man was called to till the earth, to "rule over the earth"; woman to be the bearer of a life that comes from God.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Death is the most blessed dream.
-- Georg BuchnerSource : "Leonce and Lena". Play by Georg Büchner, Act II, 1838.
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The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.
-- George Eliot -
Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest.
-- George Eliot -
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Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.
-- George Eliot -
Surely, surely the only one true knowledge of our fellow man is that which enables us to feel with him--which gives us a fine ear for the heart-pulses that are beating under the mere clothes of circumstance and opinion.
-- George Eliot -
The human heart finds nowhere shelter but in human kind.
-- George Eliot -
even those who call themselves 'intimate' know very little about each other - hardly ever know just how a sorrow is felt, and hurt each other by their very attempts at sympathy or consolation. We can bear no hand on our bruises.
-- George Eliot -
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in certain crises direct expression of sympathy is the least possible to those who most feel sympathy.
-- George Eliot -
There is hardly any contact more depressing to a young ardent creature than that of a mind in which years full of knowledge seem to have issued in a blank absence of interest or sympathy.
-- George Eliot -
A man may be buoyed up by the efflation of his wild desires to brave any imaginable peril; but he cannot calmly see one he loves braving the same peril; simply because he cannot feel within turn that which prompts another. He sees the danger, and feels not the power that is to overcome it.
-- George Henry Lewes -
When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over
-- George MacDonald -
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There is nothing sweeter than to be sympathized with.
-- George Santayana -
Men are often biased in their judgment on account of their sympathy and their interests.
-- George W. NorrisSource : George W. Norris (1945). “Fighting Liberal: The Autobiography of George W. Norris”, p.195, U of Nebraska Press
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Any relations in a social order will endure, if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy which qualifies life for immortality.
-- George William RussellSource : "Open letter to the Masters of Dublin". The Irish Times, October 7, 1913.
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The more we feel sorry for ourselves, the less sorry others will feel for us. People don't waste their small store of sympathy on those who can provide it so richly for themselves.
-- Gerald Brenan -
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Only one thing is necessary in your anguish: bear everything with resignation to the Divine Will; for this will help you to attain your eternal salvation. Hope with a lively faith and you will receive everything from Almighty God.
-- Gerard Majella -
Women have a smile for every joy, a tear for every sorrow, a consolation for every grief, an excuse for every fault, a prayer for every misfortune, and encouragement for every hope.
-- Germain-Francois Poullain de Saint-Foix -
Human it is to have compassion on the unhappy.
-- Giovanni Boccaccio -
There is only one thing I hope to see before I die, and that is that my people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore.
-- Golda Meir -
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The novelist must look on humanity without partiality or prejudice. His sympathy, like that of the historian, must be unbounded, and untainted by sect or party.
-- Goldwin Smith -
A human life is a story told by God.
-- Hans Christian Andersen -
Criticism in the universities, I'll have to admit, has entered a phase where I am totally out of sympathy with 95% of what goes on. It's Stalinism without Stalin.
-- Harold Bloom -
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
-- Harriet Beecher StoweSource : Harriet Beecher Stowe (1866). “Little Foxes: Or, The Insignificant Little Habits which Mar Domestic Happiness”, p.58
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It is only kindred griefs that draw forth our tears, and each weeps really for himself.
-- Heinrich Heine -
May tender memories soften your grief, May fond recollection bring you relief, And may you find comfort and peace in the thought Of the joy that knowing your loved one brought... For time and space can never divide Or keep your loved one from your side. When memory paints in colors true, the happy hours that belonged to you.
-- Helen Steiner Rice -
We were united not only by political respect for each other, but also by deep mutual sympathy as people.
-- Helmut Kohl -
It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.
-- Henry David Thoreau -