Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity. ...
by Pema Chodron

Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
- Pema Chodron

Related topics: Inspirational

The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people
is that they trigger confusion in us
that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with.
To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves,
we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes.
- Pema Chodron

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

At the root of all the harm we cause is ignorance.
- Pema Chodron

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Abandon hope.
- Pema Chodron

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake
is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
- Pema Chodron

No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

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 offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Our compassion and acts of selflessness
take us to the deeper truths.
- Amma

You may call God love, you may call God goodness.
But the best name for God is compassion.
- Meister Eckhart

People will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget
how you made them feel.
- Maya Angelou

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

One can not reflect in streaming water.
Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.
- Lao Tzu

Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
- written on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor.
Do you know your next door neighbor?
- Mother Teresa

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure
in doing good to another.
- Thomas Jefferson

We really have to understand the person we want to love.
If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Whoever is happy will make others happy too.
- Anne Frank

We can never be the better for our religion
if our neighbor is the worse for it.
- Anonymous

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln

With courage, you will dare to take risks,
have the strength to be compassionate,
and the wisdom to be humble.
Courage is the foundation of integrity.
- Keshavan Nair

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

You can give without loving,
but you can never love without giving.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

Love is the absence of judgment.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

A man is truly ethical only when he obeys
the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist,
and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
- Albert Schweitzer

If there is anything that a man can do well,
I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
- Abraham Lincoln

No one has ever become poor by giving.
- Anne Frank

We may have found a cure for most evils;
but we have found no remedy for the worst of them all,
the apathy of human beings.
- Helen Keller

Nobody cares how much you know,
until they know how much you care.
- attributed to Theodore Roosevelt, among others,
but probably earlier and anonymous

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need
but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
- 1 John 3:17

When we do the best that we can,
we never know what miracle is wrought in our life,
or in the life of another.
- Helen Keller

We must use time wisely and forever realize
that the time is always ripe to do right.
- Nelson Mandela

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care
for people will hear them and be influenced
by them for good or ill.
- The Buddha

A generous heart, kind speech,
and a life of service and compassion
are the things which renew humanity.
- The Buddha

If you wish to experience peace,
provide peace for another.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

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

We can live without religion and meditation,
but we cannot survive without human affection.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives
and not in what he is able to receive.
- Albert Einstein

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.
And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

It is a kingly act to assist the fallen.
- Mother Teresa

One of the secrets of life is that
all that is really worth the doing
is what we do for others.
- Lewis Carroll

Life is an exciting business,
and most exciting when it is lived for others.
- Helen Keller

Whosoever is spared personal pain
must feel himself called
to help in diminishing the pain of others.
We must all carry our share of
the misery which lies upon the world.
- Albert Schweitzer

The more we care for the happiness of others,
the greater is our own sense of well-being.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Through violence, you may 'solve' one problem,
but you sow the seeds for another.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Be gentle first with yourself -
if you wish to be gentle with others.
- Lama Yeshe

Give to your relatives, and to the needy, and to travelers.
Do not squander your wealth in wantonness.
- Quran 17:26

Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.
- Albert Schweitzer

For some of us, the world appears to provide
only a fixed quantity of each resource -
a limited amount of food, of money,
of love, of success, of appreciation.
For others, life is unlimited.
Their world expands with the generosity, compassion,
inventiveness, and service that they contribute.
In this world-view, money that is spent
or given away returns multiplied.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We are formed and molded by our thoughts.
Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts
give joy when they speak or act.
Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.
- The Buddha

People don't care how much you know
until they know how much they care.
- John C. Maxwell

A Happy Day is a day I see all of life
with the eyes of compassion.
- Rory J. Corsiglia

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as
your own unguarded thoughts.
- The Buddha

The brightest stars are those who
shine for the benefit of others.
- Anonymous

I have always found that mercy bears
richer fruits than strict justice.
- Abraham Lincoln

I don't know the meaning of life,
but I know compassion is the key.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Deal with the faults of others as gently as with your own.
- Chinese proverb

When will our consciences grow so tender
that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?
- Eleanor Roosevelt

The success of love is in the loving -
it is not in the result of loving.
Of course it is natural in love
to want the best for the other person,
but whether it turns out that way or not
does not determine the value of what we have done.
- Mother Teresa

Be kind whenever possible; and it is always possible.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

The best way to cheer yourself
is to try to cheer someone else up.
- Mark Twain

Kindness is better than piety.
- Yiddish Proverb

No one can find inner peace except by working,
not in a self-centered way, but for the whole human family.
- Peace Pilgrim

The happiness of one's own heart alone
cannot satisfy the soul;
one must try to include,
as necessary to one's own happiness,
the happiness of others.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

You can't live a perfect day without doing something
for someone who will never be able to repay you.
- John Wooden

Kind words can be short and easy to speak,
but their echoes are truly endless.
- Mother Teresa

Let us touch the dying, the poor,
the lonely and the unwanted
according to the graces we have received
and let us not be ashamed
or slow to do the humble work.
- Mother Teresa

Be gentle first with yourself.
- Lama Yeshe

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch,
a smile, a kind word, a listening ear,
an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring,
all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
- Leo Buscaglia

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie