Dreamstime
Expressed by The Golden Rule, cautioned by the idea of Idiot Compassion, and circulated with the nuances of Kindness; Compassion becomes the heart of all great religions, philosophies, political systems, and sciences. In the neo-Confucian system that governed China for 700 years, a politician’s compassion—their willingness to put the good of their village or state or country—above their personal advantage, was what determined their gaining or losing power and influence. Historically, the decreasing of compassion has signaled the corruption and fall of political, religious, and cultural leaders as well as of countries, religions, and philosophies. A biological, intrinsic emotion; our choice of following, rejecting, or ignoring the appeal of compassion may be the most potent influence determining the meaningfulness, happiness, and peace of our individual, political, and planetary lives.
“All strangers and beggars are from Zeus, and a gift, though small, is precious.”
“Generosity brings happiness at every stage of its expression. We experience joy in forming the intention to be generous. We experience joy in the actual act of giving something. And we experience joy in remembering the fact that we have given.”
“Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being.”
“One man means as much to me as a multitude, and a multitude only as much as one man.”
“All people have a mind-and-heart that cannot bear to see the suffering of others... to be without compassion is not to be human.”
“All men are my children. What I desire for my own children—and I desire their welfare and happiness both in this world and the next—that I desire for all men.”
“In all the vicissitudes of their lives, sages are of one will, never forgetting to benefit people.”
“On Golden Rule:
Repay wrongs with the Power of Goodness;
Love your brother and sister as your soul;
protect them as you do the pupils of your eyes.”
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me... as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”
“To parents do good, and to relatives, orphans, the needy, the near neighbor, the neighbor farther away, the companion at your side, the traveler, and those whom your right hands possess.”
“I will be a good doctor for the sick and suffering. I will lead those who have lost their way to the right road. I will be a bright light for those in the dark night, and cause the poor and destitute to uncover hidden treasures.”
“Moral concepts practiced without understanding can be the greatest obstacles to […] uncompromising compassion.”
“If you separate compassion and wisdom, you will only be running away from life.”
“through compassion, we learn to be soft. When we are soft, we can overcome the hardest thing in the world.”
“Perhaps by mingling my sighs with yours I may make your sufferings less, for it is said that all sorrows divided are made lighter.”
“She is with everyone and in everyone, and so beautiful is her secret that no person can know the sweetness with which she sustains people, and spares them in inscrutable mercy.”
“When we are the most in need of compassion, what is the greatest compassion that God can bestow on us? He makes us compassionate.”
“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”
“Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received – only what you have given.”
“All people love a compassionate person as they do their own parents… Hence, those who attack or defend with compassion meet no opposition.”
“You are like those who pass through the night pulling a light behind them. It doesn't profit themselves but makes those who follow them wise.”
“There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen. Other pleasures fail us, or wound us while they charm; but the pen we take up rejoicing, and lay down with satisfaction for it has the power to advantage many others, even though they may not born for thousands of years to come”
“Love may turn into an inordinate clinging to the love object, compassion can turn into sentimentality and a feeling of helplessness, joy can turn into a feeling of elation and over-excitement that gets lost in unrealistic goals, but equanimity brings us back to solid ground. It’s still vulnerable to apathy but this is countered by love completing the cycle.”
“I weave light into words so that when your mind holds them
Your eyes will relinquish their sadness, turn bright a little brighter,
Giving to us the way a candle does in the dark.”
“For love lends luster to an honorable name,
And saves mankind from wickedness and shame.”
“You say I gave too much; I say too little. What I paid was my social body, my town body, my family body, and all my inherited jewels.”
“Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.”
“The Way of Heaven is to give but not to take The Way of Humankind is to take but not to give.”
“whichever one is remorseful and compassionate will win. For the Way of Heaven is to love life and to help those who are compassionate to overcome their enemies.”
“Teaching rich men to enjoy life means asking them to give money away, which is difficult, to say the least. But it doesn’t have to be a huge amount. Not constantly grasping for more is good start and small amounts are greatly appreciated by the poor. Small and frequent gestures benefit both giver and recipient helping to banish envy and enmity.”
“Every day will allow you, will invite you to add something to the pleasure of others or to diminish something of their pains.”
“One with compassion is kind even when angry; one without compassion kills even as he smiles.”
“Those who love not their fellow-beings live unfruitful lives, and prepare for their old age a miserable grave.”
“Some day you will find out that there is far more happiness in another's happiness than in your own.”
“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.”
“I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.”
“More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.”
“I should like to make life beautiful—I mean everybody's life... It spoils my enjoyment of anything when I am made to think that most people are shut out from it.”
“You are working for the whole, you are acting for the future. Seek no reward, for great is your reward on this earth: the spiritual joy.”
“Love is such a priceless treasure that you can buy the whole world with it, and redeem not only your own but other people's sins. Go, and do not be afraid.”
“If I can stop one heart from breaking, if I can ease one life the aching, I shall not live in vain.”
“their only religion was that of self-respect and consideration for other people.”
“If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them everywhere.”
“compassion... If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide for action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.”
“'Yes,' I thought, 'this is it, my world, the real world, the secret where there are no teachers, no schools, no unanswerable questions, where one can be without having to ask anything'... In real life, I have promised myself this splendor again and again, but I have never kept my promise.”
“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.”
“You often say ; I would give, but only to the deserving. The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture… For in truth it is life that gives unto life-while you, who deem yourself a giver, is but a witness.”
“Our industrial leaders should welcome and help to implement the welfare state as a humane mitigation of the painful inequality of human fortune, and a saving substitute from social turmoil and dictatorial repression.”
“You will see that in life you receive exactly what you give. Your life is the mirror of what you are.”
“It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life... It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.”
“Animals do feel like us, also joy, love, fear and pain but they cannot grasp the spoken word. It is our obligation to take their part and continue to resist the people who profit by them, who slaughter them and who torture them.”
“Avolokitesvara wanted to help the whole world, but could not do so with only two arms and one head. He therefore burst into a thousand arms and a thousand heads”
“Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.”
“Animals have genes for altruism, and those genes have been selected in the evolution of many creatures because of the advantage they confer for the continuing survival of the species.”
“Let us begin by removing national boundaries with the trees and grasses. The liberation of peoples everywhere shall begin from this point... grasses and trees have no national boundaries. Let us scatter the seeds of various drought-hardy grasses, trees, and food crops by airplane all at once over those areas on earth that have turned to desert.”
“The patron saint of American philanthropy is... Benjamin Franklin, the man with a business sense and an eye on his community. For Franklin, doing good was not a private act between bountiful giver and grateful receiver it was a prudent social act.”
“We become compassionate not from altruism which denies the self for the sake of the other, but from the insight that sees and feels one is the other.”
“I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye”
“Rather than converting people from one organized religion to another organized religion, we should try to convert people from misery to happiness, from bondage to liberation and from cruelty to compassion.”
“You keep going. That is the bodhisattva’s way. As long as it benefits even one being you have to, without any sense of discouragement, go on.”
“People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.”
“I think the best thing you can do is help each other. When we do that, we do something meaningful. I choose this meaning for myself since no one knows. I make sure that in my life I can help other people who are in trouble.”
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
“The foundation of the Buddha's teachings lies in compassion, and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion.”
“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.”
“Compassion is based on some sense of soft spot in us... some kind of opening. It doesn't matter what it is we love as long as there is a sore spot of some kind, an open wound of some kind.”
“The expression of compassion is skillful means, the unhesitating application of any method that can be used to help living beings in whatever way possible.”
“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make...”
“The more truly solitary we are, the more compassionate we can be.”
“We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world… It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.”
“Compassion without wisdom is bondage. Wisdom without compassion is bondage. Compassion and wisdom are the two wings of enlightenment.”
“Love is when you are thinking: ‘How can I make you happy?’ Attachment is when you are thinking: ‘Why aren’t you making me happy?’”
“everyone just wants to be happy. The truly sad thing is that most people seek happiness in ways that actually sabotage their attempts. If we could see the whole truth of any situation, our only response would be one of compassion.”
“Compassion is the spontaneous wisdom of the heart. It’s always with us. It always has been, and always will be.”
“if you have abundance, instead of building a higher fence, you might just build a longer table”
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