Human Compassion Quotes:

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

- Albert Einstein

topic: Inspirational, Life, Beauty, Space Race, Inspirational Animal

The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.

- Albert Schweitzer

topic: Inspirational, Helping Others, Compassion, Sympathy For A Friend, Sympathy Messages

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.

- George Washington Carver

topic: Inspirational, Funny, Life, Life Philosophy, Kind People

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

- Albert Einstein

topic: Inspirational, Beauty, Spiritual, Quiet Person, Experiencing Things

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.

- George Bernard Shaw

topic: Peace, Soulmate, Honesty, Inhumanity, Indifference And Apathy

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.

- Dalai Lama

topic: Inspirational, Life, Motivational, Kindness And Compassion, Daily Buddhist

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

- Mother Teresa

topic: Peace, Military, Positive Attitude, Quaker, Peacefulness

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other - not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.

- Nelson Mandela

topic: Future, Compassion, Suffering, Hope For The Future, Random Kindness

Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.

- Dalai Lama

topic: Religious, Business, Buddhism, Mental Peace, Mental Stability

We experience ourselves our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

- Albert Einstein

source: Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.15, St. Martin's Press

topic: Inspirational, Spiritual, Nature, Quiet Person, Experiencing Things

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.

- Dalai Lama

topic: Love, Inspirational, Life, Daily Buddhist, Love And Affection

World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just mere absence of violence. Peace is, I think, the manifestation of human compassion.

- Dalai Lama

topic: Life, Spiritual, Peace, Peaceful World, World Peace Day

Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

- Henri Nouwen

source: Henri J. M. Nouwen (2017). “You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Hachette UK

topic: Lonely, Hurt, Pain, Brokenness, Immersion

Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test…consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals.

- Milan Kundera

topic: Attitude, Animal, Humanity, Animal Cruelty, Animal Testing

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

- Pema Chodron

topic: Relationship, Real, Compassion, Healer, Compassion And Empathy

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

topic: Believe, Heart, Compassion, Human Heart, Human Dignity

A good deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a good deed done to a human being, while an act of cruelty to an animal is a bad as an act of cruelty to a human being.

- Muhammad

topic: Animal, Done, Deeds, Animal Cruelty, Compassion Towards Animals

In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they show a general compassion for all the human race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to relieve the sorrows of others when they can do so without much trouble to themselves. They are not disinterested, but they are gentle.

- Alexis de Tocqueville

topic: Sacrifice, Men, Compassion, Compassion For Others, Human Compassion

The indifference, callousness and contempt that so many people exhibit toward animals is evil first because it results in great suffering in animals, and second because it results in an incalculably great impoverishment of the human spirit.

- Albert Einstein

topic: Animal, Compassion, People, Inspirational Animal, Animal Cruelty

To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.

- Mahatma Gandhi

topic: Karma, Animal, Pet, Compassion Towards Animals, Animal Compassion

A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals the secret of some hidden treasure.

- Dalai Lama

topic: Inspirational, Life, Mistake, Wise Buddhist, Peace And Tolerance

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.

- Alice Walker

topic: Meaningful, Nature, Animal, Human Will, Animal Cruelty

All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.

- Tahereh Mafi

source: Tahereh Mafi (2014). “Shatter Me Complete Collection: Shatter Me, Destroy Me, Unravel Me, Fracture Me, Ignite Me”, p.38, Harper Collins

topic: Lost Love, Heart, Hands, Compassion For Others, Love Sick

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

- Dalai Lama

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Inspiring, Buddhist Monk, Meditation Mindfulness

The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.

- Meryl Streep

source: "'I Want To Feel My Life While I’m In It' – The Wonderful Meryl Streep’s Greatest Quotes". www.marieclaire.co.uk. June 23, 2015.

topic: Inspirational, Compassion, Fundraising, Compassion And Empathy, Human Compassion

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.

- Seneca the Younger

source: "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

topic: Inspirational, Inspiring, Thank You, Social Good, Just Being There

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

- Dalai Lama

topic: Inspirational, Happiness, Happy, Social Good, Loving Others

Compassion is the chief law of human existence.

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

source: Fyodor Dostoyevsky (2006). “The Idiot: Easyread Large Edition”, p.129, ReadHowYouWant.com

topic: Kindness, Compassion, Law, Kindness And Compassion, Mercy And Compassion

With compassion, we see benevolently our own human condition and the condition of our fellow beings. We drop prejudice. We withhold judgment.

- Christina Baldwin

source: Christina Baldwin (1991). “Life's Companion: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Quest”, Bantam

topic: Compassion, Prejudice, Judgment, Human Compassion

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

- Mahatma Gandhi

topic: Inspirational, Faith, Hope, Peace And Love, Drops In The Ocean

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.

- Henry James

source: "Henry James: A Life". Book by Leon Edel. Volume 5: "The Master 1901-1916", 1972.

topic: Inspirational, Life, Friendship, Kindness And Compassion, Kind Words

I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.

- Abraham Lincoln

topic: Meaningful, Nature, Compassion, Human Will, Inspirational Animal

Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.

- Henri Nouwen

topic: Lonely, Compassion, Broken, Human Compassion

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

- Viktor E. Frankl

source: Viktor E. Frankl (2015). “Man's Search For Meaning, Gift Edition”, p.55, Beacon Press

topic: Life, Positive, Leadership, Huts, Mans Search For Meaning

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. I hold that the more helpless a creature the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of humankind.

- Mahatma Gandhi

topic: Dog, Nature, Greatness, Animal Cruelty, Plants And Animals

I would like to believe that it is, and will continue to be, human compassion for other beings that will result in our giving them the protection they deserve, because of who they are, not because of what they can do for us or because some law tells us what we have to do.

- Marc Bekoff

source: "Who Lives and Who Dies: We All Care About Animals, Right?" by Marc Bekoff, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 21, 2010.

topic: Believe, Compassion, Law, Compassion For Others, Human Compassion

The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.

- Richard P. Feynman

topic: Laughter, Inspiration, Compassion, Social Good, Human Compassion

The fairy tale emanates from specific struggles to humanize ***** and barbaric forces, which have terrorized our minds and communities in concrete ways, threatening to destroy free will and human compassion. The fairy tale sets out to conquer this concrete terror through metaphors.

- Jack Zipes

source: Jack Zipes (2013). “When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition”, p.1, Routledge

topic: Struggle, Compassion, Community, Emanate, Human Compassion

Happiness and peace will come to earth only as the light of love and human compassion enter the souls of men.

- David O. McKay

topic: Love, Happiness, Peace, Light Of Love, Human Compassion

My husband, Andrius, says that evil will rule until good men or women choose to act. I believe him. This testimony was written to create an absolute record, to speak in a world where our voices have been extinguished. These writing may shock or horrify you, but that is not my intention. It is my greatest hope that the pages in this jar stir your deepest well of human compassion. I hope they prompt you to do something, to tell somone. Only then can we ensure that this kind of evil is never allowed to repeat itself.

- Ruta Sepetys

topic: Husband, Believe, Writing, Human Compassion

Hey!" I exclaimed, seeing the total. "They're charging me retail. Glenn!" I complained. "They can't do that." I shook it at him. "I shouldn't have to pay retail!" "What did you expect? You can keep that. It's your copy." I sat back in a huff and shoved it in my bag with my sticky scarf as he typed his slow, painful way through my report. "Where's this human compassion I keep hearing about?" "That's it, baby doll," he said, voice smoother than usual. He was laughing at me.

- Kim Harrison

source: Kim Harrison (2013). “Black Magic Sanction”, p.35, HarperCollins UK

topic: Baby, Compassion, Voice, Charging, Reports

While it is true that the taking of life not yet born or in it's final stages is sometimes marked by a mistaken sense of altruism and human compassion it cannot be denied that such a culture of death, taken as a whole, betrays a completely individualistic concept of freedom, which ends up by becoming the freedom of "the strong" against the weak who have no choice but to submit.

- Pope John Paul II

topic: Strong, Taken, Compassion, Individualistic, Human Compassion

There’s been a problem, a problem eating away at me from the inside out. I’ve become weak, I’ve shown human compassion, and it has weakened me. But no more. Tonight I will once again feast on fear and suffering. My appetite for agony will be awakened. I will once again taste the pain of others. I will feast on the fear of the innocent, and that is the sweetest taste of all. Tonight I hunger for a sacrifice.

- Kane

topic: Pain, Sacrifice, Compassion, Human Compassion

This is a place for ordinary human compassion of the kind that is reconciling

- Richard Chartres

source: Richard Chartres' Address at Margaret Thatcher's funeral, www.theguardian.com. April 13, 2013.

topic: Love, Family, Happiness, Human Compassion