130 Best Compassion Quotes

We have compiled the best compassion quotes and compassion sayings.

Compassion means “to suffer together.” Compassion is not the same as empathy or altruism, though the concepts are related.

It is defined as the feeling that arises when confronted with another’s suffering and feels motivated to relieve that suffering.

These quotes will inspire you to become a more compassionate person.

Compassion Quotes

Best Compassion Quotes

It is not enough to be compassionate. You must act.

Dalai Lama

Compassion is the radicalism of our time.

Dalai Lama

Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.

Jack Kornfield

Kindness is not about instant gratification. More often, it’s akin to a low-risk investment that appreciates steadily over time.

Josh Radnor

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.

Lao Tzu

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

Dalai Lama

A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.

Steve Maraboli

It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers.

Thomas Merton

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

William Makepeace Thackeray

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.

Pema Chodron

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If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

Anonymous

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

Dalai Lama

Compassion is about giving all the love that you’ve got.

Cheryl Strayed

Use your voice for kindness, your ears for compassion, your hands for charity, your mind for truth, and your heart for love.

Anonymous

Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.

Confucius

Until you have real compassion, you can not recognize love.

Bob Thurman

Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.

Henry Ward Beecher

Compassion is at the heart of every little thing we do. It is the dearest quality we possess. Yet all too often it can be cast aside with consequences too tragic to speak of. To lose our compassion, we lose what it is to be human.

Anonymous

That is what compassion does. It challenges our assumptions, our sense of self-limitation, worthlessness, of not having a place in the world. As we develop compassion, our hearts open.

Sharon Salzberg

“Let our hearts be stretched out in compassion toward others, for everyone is walking his or her own difficult path.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf

As I get older, the more I stay focused on the acceptance of myself and others, and choose compassion over judgment and curiosity over fear.

Tracee Ellis Ross

Where there is no human connection, there is no compassion. Without compassion, then community, commitment, loving-kindness, human understanding, and peace all shrivel. Individuals become isolated, the isolated turn cruel, and the tragic hovers in the forms of domestic and civil violence. Art and literature are antidotes to that.

Susan Vreeland

Compassionate Quotations

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 Chödrön

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Let our hearts be stretched out in compassion toward others, for everyone is walking his or her own difficult path.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Compassion is a foundation for sharing our aliveness and building a more humane world.

Martin Lowenthal

No matter who we are, no matter how successful, no matter what our situation, compassion is something we all need to receive and give.

Catherine Pulsifer

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.

Og Mandino

Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.

Mason Cooley

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

Mother Teresa

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.

Thomas Merton

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

Extend yourself in kindness to other human being wherever you can.

Oprah Winfrey

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 | Maya Angelou Quotes

There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.

Robert Frost

I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.

Pablo Casals

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

Helen Keller

Compassion is about giving all the love that you’ve got.

Cheryl Strayed

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.

Maya Angelou

Compassionate Quotes

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

Tahereh Mafi

In compassion, when we feel with the other, we dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and we put another person there.

Karen Armstrong

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Plato

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

Dalai Lama

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.

William Penn

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.

Norman Cousins

I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.

Mother Teresa

Compassion is to look beyond your own pain, to see the pain of others.

Yasmin Mogahed

When we give ourselves compassion, we are opening our hearts in a way that can transform our lives.

Kristin Neff

Compassion and nonviolence help us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear their questions, to know their assessment of ourselves. For from their point of view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers and sisters who are called the opposition.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

When you have learned compassion for yourself, compassion for others is automatic.

Henepola Gunaratana

Compassion is an action word with no boundaries.

Prince

Human it is to have compassion on the unhappy.

Giovanni Boccaccio

Compassion is at the heart of every little thing we do. It is the dearest quality we possess. Yet all too often it can be cast aside with consequences too tragic to speak of. To lose our compassion, we lose what it is to be human.

God’s dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.

Desmond Tutu

When compassion wakes up in us, we find ourselves more willing to become vulnerable, to take the risk of entering the pain of others.

Sue Monk Kidd

Compassion knows that choosing the higher road in any situation is the most loving option for you.

Debbie Ford

Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.

William Cowper

Compassion is no substitute for justice.

Rush Limbaugh

Compassion, not passion, keeps a marriage together.

Betty Wright

I think compassion is an important quality in people in general.

Shannon Elizabeth

It’s hard to practice compassion when we’re struggling with our authenticity or when our own worthiness is off-balance.

Brene Brown

Compassion is more important than intellect in calling forth the love that the work of peace needs, and intuition can often be a far more powerful searchlight than cold reason.

Betty Williams

Most people are not good people. In business, in art, in almost every ‘world’ I’ve been in, most people I’ve meet are pretty gray to black. It takes practice to be the person who is a source of compassion and honesty.

James Altucher

Strength and compassion are not mutually exclusive.

Robert Kiyosaki

I know what real courage is, and I understand true compassion

Mo Yan

True compassion means not only feeling another’s pain but also being moved to help relieve it.

Daniel Goleman

Quotes About Compassion

I work really hard at trying to see the big picture and not getting stuck in ego. I believe we’re all put on this planet for a purpose, and we all have a different purpose… When you connect with that love and that compassion, that’s when everything unfolds.

Ellen DeGeneres

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.

Dalai Lama

All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.

Dalai Lama

Of course we have compassion. We just don’t believe the safety net should be used as a hammock.

Allen West

We need the compassion and the courage to change the conditions that support our suffering. Those conditions are things like ignorance, bitterness, negligence, clinging, and holding on.

Sharon Salzberg

Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.

Criss Jami, Killosophy

Compassion has no place in the natural order of the world which operates on the basis of necessity. Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural.

John Berger

Honesty is the quality I value most in a friend. Not bluntness, but honesty with compassion.

Brooke Shields

The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion; constitutionality is no match with compassion.

Everett Dirksen

Compassion may be defined as the capacity to be attentive to the experience of others, to wish the best for others, and to sense what will truly serve others.

Joan Halifax

The Lord will give you, if you ask, the feelings of the compassion He feels for those in need.

Henry B. Eyring

On the one hand maybe I’ve remained infantile, while on the other I matured quickly, because at a young age I was very aware of suffering and fear.

Audrey Hepburn

Some people are filled by compassion and a desire to do good, and some simply don’t think anything’s going to make a difference.

Meryl Streep

From compassion springs humility. The ego is verily a gateway to hell. The person who is egoistic is far from being religious.

Dada Vaswani

All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment.

Dalai Lama

The church must always show compassion, always.

Rick Warren

When we’re looking for compassion, we need someone who is deeply rooted, is able to bend and, most of all, embraces us for our strengths and struggles.

Brene Brown

I think compassion is important but love fizzles out eventually. But if there is compassion in a relationship, things can always be worked out.

Anushka Sharma

Compassion does not just happen. Pity does, but compassion is not pity. It’s not a feeling. Compassion is a viewpoint, a way of life, a perspective, a habit that becomes a discipline – and more than anything else, compassion is a choice we make that love is more important than comfort or convenience.

Glennon Doyle Melton

I’m a pretty tough guy, you know. I’m a pretty hard man. I’ve got a lot of compassion, but I don’t waste time with people.

Anthony Hopkins

She has no imagination and that means no compassion.

Michael Foot

Compassion is loving others enough to say or do what is appropriate from an empowered heart without attachment to the outcome.

Gary Zukav

In compassion, when we feel with the other, we dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and we put another person there.

Karen Armstrong

More smiling, less worrying. More compassion, less judgment. More blessed, less stressed. More love, less hate.

Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

No one has ever become poor by giving.

Anne Frank, diary of Anne Frank

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

Compassion Sayings

Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.

Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions

It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

Mahatma Gandhi

Highly sensitive people are too often perceived as weaklings or damaged goods. To feel intensely is not a symptom of weakness, it is the trademark of the truly alive and compassionate. It is not the empath who is broken, it is society that has become dysfunctional and emotionally disabled. There is no shame in expressing your authentic feelings. Those who are at times described as being a ‘hot mess’ or having ‘too many issues’ are the very fabric of what keeps the dream alive for a more caring, humane world. Never be ashamed to let your tears shine a light in this world.

Anthon St. Maarten

The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud. In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud — the obstacles of life and its suffering. … The mud speaks of the common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life. … Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. If we are to strive as human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one.

Goldie Hawn

When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.

Maya Angelou

One of the most spiritual things you can do is embrace your humanity. Connect with those around you today. Say, “I love you”, “I’m sorry”, “I appreciate you”, “I’m proud of you”…whatever you’re feeling. Send random texts, write a cute note, embrace your truth and share it…cause a smile today for someone else…and give plenty of hugs.

Steve Maraboli

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

Jack Kornfield

It’s important that what thoughts you are feeding into your mind because your thoughts create your belief and experiences. You have positive thoughts and you have negative ones too. Nurture your mind with positive thoughts: kindness, empathy, compassion, peace, love, joy, humility, generosity, etc. The more you feed your mind with positive thoughts, the more you can attract great things into your life.

Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

That’s what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.

Simone de Beauvoir

Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy.

Dean Koontz

Compassion is the awareness of a deep bond between yourself and all creatures. On the one hand, since you are still here as a physical body, you share the vulnerability and mortality of your physical form with every other human and with every living being. On the level of form, you share mortality and the precariousness of existence.

Ekhart Tolle | The Power Of Now

Is that what compassion is? Yes. Compassion is the awareness of a deep bond between yourself and all creatures. But there are two sides to compassion, two sides to this bond. On the one hand, since you are still here as a physical body, you share the vulnerability and mortality of your physical form with every other human and with every living being. Next time you say “I have nothing in common with this person,” remember that you have a great deal in common: …

Eckhart Tolle

More Compassionate Quotes

Lincoln’s appeal to ‘the better angels of our nature’ failed to avert a fratricidal war. But the compassionate wisdom of Lincoln’s first and second inaugurals bequeathed to the Union, cemented with blood, a moral heritage which, when drawn upon in times of stress and strife, is sure to find specific ways and means to surmount difficulties that may appear to be insurmountable.

Felix Frankfurter

The value of compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater burden can be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or understands.

H. Stainback

Compassion is not to be numbered among the general faults of mankind. The black ingredient which fouls our disposition is envy. Hence our eyes, it is to be feared, are seldom turned up to those who are manifestly greater, better, wiser, or happier than ourselves, without some degree of malignity, we commonly look downward on the mean and miserable with sufficient benevolence and pity.

Henry Fielding

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 J.M. Nouwen

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

Martin Luther King Jr.

It is only with true love and compassion that we can begin to mend what is broken in the world. It is these two blessed things that can begin to heal all broken hearts.

Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It’s the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.

Frederick Buechner

Compassion is an emotion of which we ought never to be ashamed. Graceful, particularly in youth, is the tear of sympathy, and the heart that melts at the tale of woe. We should not permit ease and indulgence to contract our affections, and wrap us up in a selfish enjoyment; but we should accustom ourselves to think of the distresses of human, life, of the solitary cottage; the dying parent, and the weeping orphan. Nor ought we ever to sport with pain and distress in any of our amusements, or treat even the meanest insect with wanton cruelty.

Hugh Blair

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

John F. Kennedy

Give your weakness to one who helps.

Rumi | Rumi Quotes

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.

Francis Of Assisi

Hurt people hurt people. We are not being judgmental by separating ourselves from such people. But we should do so with compassion. Compassion is defined as a “keen awareness of the suffering of another coupled with a desire to see it relieved.” People hurt others as a result of their own inner strife and pain. Avoid the reactive response of believeing they are bad; they already think so and are acting that way. They aren’t bad; they are damaged and they deserve compassion. Note that compassion is an internal process, an understanding of the painful and troubled road trod by another. It is not trying to change or fix that person.

Will Bowen, Complaint Free Relationships

One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.

Simone De Beauvoir

With compassion one becomes courageous. Compassion brings triumph when attacked; it brings security when maintained.

Tao Te Ching

Quotes About Being Compassionate Towards People

The True happiness that Man has searched for since the dawn of humanity, that is the inner gold that awaits any person who holds compassionately the key of anonymous generosity. Do something for your fellow man, not for the gold, but for the love of Man, and you shall truly have the gold.

Thomas Fuller

The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion . . . open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.

Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red

If everyone in the world sat quietly at the same time, closed their eyes and concentrated as hard as they could on peace and goodwill, all the killing and cruelty in the world would continue. And probably increase.

George Carlin

Compassion is the desire that moves the individual self to widen the scope of its self-concern to embrace the whole of the universal self.

Arnold Toynbee

The Secret’s” message is to let go of all blame because it only destroys you, and to move forward with hope, love, compassion and kindness.

Báb

Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question of what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing ‘we’ can do — but who is that ‘we’? — and nothing ‘they’ can do either — and who are ‘they’ — then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic.

Susan Sontag

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 J.M. Nouwen

There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.

Bishop Robert South

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

Christina Baldwin

How beautiful would it be if we could just see souls instead of bodies? To see love and compassion instead of curves.

Karen Quan

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