Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded.
by 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

Related topics: Inspirational Life Human-Nature Psychology Buddhist Compassion

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 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

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

Abandon hope.
- Pema Chodron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don't let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Whether one believes in a religion or not,
and whether one believes in rebirth or not,
there isn't anyone who doesn't
appreciate kindness and compassion.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

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

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

I soothe my conscience now with the thought that
it is better for hard words to be on paper
than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.
- Anne Frank

The smallest act of kindness
is worth more than the grandest intention.
- Oscar Wilde

Once you know yourself as a genuine seeker,
and when your own inner chamber is quite enlightened,
then comes the natural unfoldment of pure love and compassion
and a genuine desire to serve others.
- Rod Stryker

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
- St. Francis of Assisi

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

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

We think sometimes that poverty is only
being hungry, naked and homeless.
The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and
uncared for is the greatest poverty.
We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
- Mother Teresa

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

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

I have found that among its other benefits,
giving liberates the soul of the giver.
- Maya Angelou

Life is unlimited - it expands with the generosity,
compassion, inventiveness, and service that you contribute.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Kindness is better than piety.
- Yiddish Proverb

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

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

Where there is charity and wisdom,
there is neither fear nor ignorance.
- St. Francis of Assisi

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

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

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

Seek always to do some good, somewhere.
Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth.
You must give some time to your fellow man.
For remember, you don't live in a world all your own.
Your brothers are here too.
- Albert Schweitzer

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

Compassion is the universal standard of moral living.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We receive this food in gratitude to all beings
Who have helped to bring it to our table,
And vow to respond in turn to those in need
With wisdom and compassion.
- Buddhist Blessing

The vast Cathedral of Your Being
becomes sanctuary for all creation
as you celebrate the universal sacraments
of compassion and joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others
will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.
- Helen Keller

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

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