Compassion & Empathy quotes for UPSC & State PCS

My true religion is Kindness.

Love truth, but pardon error.

Men are cruel, but Man is kind.

Love the sinner and hate the sin.

Charity is the root of all good works.

In the faces of men and women I see God.

If you wish mercy, show mercy to the weak.

Where there is sorrow there is holy ground.

Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it.

Give, even if you only have a little. (Verse 224)

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

Benevolence is the characteristic element of humanity.

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

...there are more things to admire in men than to despise.

A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.

It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one.

Nothing is little to him that feels it with great sensibility.

No rules, however wise, are a substitute for affection and tact.

Life teaches us to be less harsh with ourselves and with others.

Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.

The music that can deepest reach, And cure all ill, is cordial speech.

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

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

Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.

He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gate open.

Real kindness seeks no return; What return can the world make to rain clouds?

One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.

You can never do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.

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

It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.

Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them. (Long translation)

The healthy man does not torture others—generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.

Every person is worthy of an infinite wealth of love — the beauty of his soul knows no limit.

Goodness is something so simple: always to live for others, never to seek one's own advantage.

Dialogue cannot exist, however, in the absence of a profound love for the world and its people.

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

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.

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

In a valiant suffering for others, not in a slothful making others suffer for us, did nobleness ever lie.

All people respect and love their own parents and children, as well as the parents and children of others.

The more we come out and do good to others, the more our hearts will be purified, and God will be in them.

'No one is useless in this world,' retorted the Secretary, 'who lightens the burden of it for any one else.'

To use bitter words, when kind words are at hand, Is like picking unripe fruit when the ripe fruit is there.

Teach me to feel another's woe, To right the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me.

Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and now.

My forefathers were Brahmins. They spent their lives in search of God. I am spending my life in search of Man.

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

Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.

Don't look for big things, just do small things with great love....The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.

The good particular men may do separately, in relieving the sick, is small, compared with what they may do collectively.

For if a thing is not diminished by being shared with others, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned and not shared.

Perhaps the best hope for the future of mankind is that ways will be found of increasing the scope and intensity of sympathy.

He that defers his charity 'till he is dead, is (if a man weighs it rightly) rather liberal of another man's, than of his own.

We should never take pleasure in causing pain to others, even to those who have wronged us, but rather strive to do good to all.

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.

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.

The toad beneath the harrow knows Exactly where each tooth point goes; The butterfly upon the road Preaches contentment to that toad.

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

To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves.

Without perfect sympathy with the animals around them, no gentleman's education, no Christian education, could be of any possible use.

This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.

All men are in need of help and depend on one another. Human solidarity is the necessary condition for the unfolding of any one individual.

Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.

A person who already displays … cruelty to animals is also no less hardened towards men. We can already know the human heart, even in regard to animals.

A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of.

My mother ... had a wonderful sense of humor, and I learned from her that the highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.

Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.

For my own part, I cannot without grief see so much as an innocent beast pursued and killed that has no defence, and from which we have received no offence at all.

Think on this doctrine,—that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.

It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if the drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of the missing drop.

No one has ever become poor by giving. If you act that way, then after a few generations people will no longer have to feel sorry for child beggars, because there will no longer be any!

The reasons for legal intervention in favour of children, apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and victims of the most brutal part of mankind, the lower animals.

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.

Non-violence and kindness to living beings is kindness to oneself. For thereby one's own self is saved from various kinds of sins and resultant sufferings and is able to secure his own welfare.

Our feeling about every obligation depends in each case upon the spirit in which the benefit is conferred; we weigh not the bulk of the gift, but the quality of the good-will which prompted it.

I sincerely wish that every member of Congress could visit the displaced person's camp in Germany and Austria and see just what is happening to 500,000 human beings through no fault of their own.

Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who 'forgives' you — out of love — takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice.

To teach him betimes to love and be good-natur'd to others, is to lay early the true foundation of an honest man; all injustice generally springing from too great love of ourselves and too little of others.

Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don't help us, who else in the world can help us do this?

Perform anonymous service. Whenever we do good for others anonymously, our sense of intrinsic worth and self-respect increases. … Selfless service has always been one of the most powerful methods of influence.

Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world - one that makes you understand that your obligations to others extend beyond people who look like you and act like you and live in your neighborhood.

Not one of us knows what effect his life produces, and what he gives to others; that is hidden from us and must remain so, though we are often allowed to see some little fraction of it, so that we may not lose courage.

I do not agree with a big way of doing things. What matters is the individual. If we wait till we get numbers, then we will be lost in the numbers and we will never be able to show that love and respect for the person.

Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor, — all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked, — who is good? not that men are ignorant, — what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.

None of us can say that had I been exposed to the same circumstances and conditions that I wouldn't have turned out the same way. Perpetrators don't have horns, don't have tails, they are as ordinary looking as you and I.

After so much austerity I have known that the highest truth is this: He is present in every being! These are all in manifold forms of him. There is no other God to seek for! He alone is worshipping God, who serves all beings!

The water which has been refused to the cry of the weary and dying is unholy, though it had been blessed by every saint in heaven; and the water which is found in the vessel of mercy is holy, though it had been defiled with corpses.

Children should from the beginning be bred up in an abhorrence of killing or tormenting any living creature; and be taught not to spoil or destroy any thing, unless it be for the preservation or advantage of some other that is nobler.

He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into Living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the earth — they, and they only.

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.

There is merely bad luck in not being loved; there is misfortune in not loving. All of us, today, are dying of this misfortune. For violence and hatred dry up the heart itself; the long fight for justice exhausts the love that nevertheless gave birth to it.

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion. ... People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love. ... For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Be kind to each other in your homes. Be kind to those who surround you. I prefer that you make mistakes in kindness rather than that you work miracles in unkindness. Often just for one word, one look, one quick action, and darkness fills the heart of the one we love.

Ultimately, the reason why love and compassion bring the greatest happiness is simply that our nature cherishes them above all else. The need for love lies at the very foundation of human existence. It results from the profound interdependence we all share with one another.

How many hearts with warm red blood in them are beating under cover of the woods, and how many teeth and eyes are shining! A multitude of animal people, intimately related to us, but of whose lives we know almost nothing, are as busy about their own affairs as we are about ours.

Today we recognize all these fine efforts of voluntarism by the Commission members as well as those of the Ad Council. Helping one another for the good of this country and its citizens and without concern for reward or payment, this is the heart of America -- strong, good, and true.

When, one day, you have made your mark on the world, remember that, in the ultimate analysis, we are all mere temporary custodians of the wealth we generate, whether it be financial, intellectual, or emotional. The best use of all your wealth is to share it with those less fortunate.

Some people, when they do someone a favor, are always looking for a chance to call it in. And some aren't, but they're still aware of it--still regard it as a debt. But others don't even do that. They're like a vine that produces grapes without looking for anything in return. (Hays translation)

Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he, who is cruel to living creatures, cannot be a good man. Moreover, this compassion manifestly flows from the same source whence arise the virtues of justice and loving-kindness towards men.

Forgiveness is taking seriously the awfulness of what has happened when you are treated unfairly. It is opening the door for the other person to have a chance to begin again. Without forgiveness, resentment builds in us, a resentment which turns into hostility and anger. Hatred eats away at our well-being.

Let your heart feel for the affliction, and distresses of every one—and let your hand give, in proportion to your purse—remembering always, the estimation of the Widows mite. But, that it is not every one who asketh, that deserveth charity; all however are worthy of the enquiry—or the deserving may suffer.

If you find many people who are hard and indifferent to you in a world that you consider to be unhospitable and cruel—as often, indeed, happens to a tender-hearted, stirring young creature—you will also find there are noble hearts who will look kindly on you, and their help will be precious to you beyond price.

We be of one blood, ye and I.

Understanding is a two-way street.

When you learn, teach, when you get, give.

Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.

mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent

To lead men, you have to lead them with affection.

In the dictionary of Satyagraha, there is no enemy.

Love begins at home. And love to be true has to hurt.

The severest justice may not always be the best policy.

Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.

You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.

One cannot hire a hand; the whole man always comes with it.

There is only one enduring happiness in life—to live for others.

For love is ever the beginning of Knowledge, as fire is of light.

A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.

I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it.

The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.

To be good and lead a good life means to give to others more than one takes from them.

A man who has no consideration for the needs of his men ought never to be given command.

When you are about to badger the weak, Then imagine yourself before a more powerful man.

Making money from business is happiness, but making other people happy is super happiness.

There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

Work on with the intrepidity of a lion but at the same time with the tenderness of a flower.

He who cannot look over a battlefield with a dry eye, causes the death of many men uselessly.

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.

Without love the acquisition of knowledge only increases confusion and leads to self-destruction.

Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.

Noble be man, Helpful and good! For that alone Sets hims apart From every other creature On earth.

If you are not already dead, forgive. Rancor is heavy, it is worldly; leave it on earth: die light.

Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall they be saved.

Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love. (Hays translation)

For a sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.

What is love's perfection? To love our enemies, and to love them to the end that they may be our brothers.

As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are soft-hearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.

Without forgiveness there can be no future for a relationship between individuals or within and between nations.

Economic privation proceeds by easy stages, and so long as men suffer it patiently the outside world cares little.

We need a little more compassion, and if we cannot have it then no politician or even a magician can save the planet.

You can make more friends in two months by being interested in them, than in two years by making them interested in you.

This earth is the honey (madhu, the effect) of all beings, and all beings are the honey (madhu, the effect) of this earth.

The superfluities of the rich are the necessaries of the poor. They who possess superfluities, possess the goods of others.

I believe that none of us are fully free when others in the human family remain shackled by poverty or disease or oppression.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

All tremble at the rod, all are fearful of death. Drawing the parallel to yourself, neither kill nor get others to kill. (Verse 129)

Act so as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, at all times also as an end, and not only as a means.

If a man is mistaken, instruct him kindly and show him his error. But if thou art not able, blame thyself, or blame not even thyself.

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

The only thing that isn't worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don't. (Hays translation)

All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away.

Eloquence may strike the ear, but the language of poverty strikes the heart; the first may charm like music, but the second alarms like a knell.

Conquer the hateful man with love; conquer the bad man with goodness; conquer the miser with generosity; conquer the liar with truth. (Verse 223)

Translation: Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, And the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

To be angry with a man is to hate him; to hate him is to wish him harm; but to wish him well, even if he has done you harm, is the mark of a great mind.

The humble sages, by virtue of true knowledge, see with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [outcaste].

Forgiveness doesn't mean forget what happened. … If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures.

The Irish famine of 1846 killed more than 1,000,000 people, but it killed poor devils only. To the wealth of the country it did not the slightest damage.

Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdain — under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human core.

It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level.

There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude...we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.

If one by one we counted people out For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long To get so we had no one left to live with. For to be social is to be forgiving.

There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.

What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love, selfless. That love will make every word tell like a thunderbolt.

All for each, and each for all, is a good motto; but only on condition that each works with might and main to so maintain himself as not to be a burden to others.

These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men. The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Time is always moving on; nothing can stop it. We can’t change the past, but we can shape the future. The more compassionate you are, the more you will find inner peace.

...be tolerant with others and strict with yourself. Remember, nothing belongs to you but your flesh and blood—and nothing else is under your control. (Hays translation)

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.

Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly — that is the first law of nature.

What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.

Given what can be achieved through intelligent and humane intervention, it is amazing how inactive and smug most societies are about the prevalence of the unshared burden of disability.

Hail to the man who went through life always helping others, knowing no fear, and to whom aggressiveness and resentment are alien. Such is the stuff of which the great moral leaders are made.

We can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

Do not think of your faults; still less of others' faults: in every person who comes near you, look for what is good and strong: honour that; rejoice in it; and, as you can, try to imitate it.

Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

When one cultivates to the utmost the principles of his nature, and exercises them on the principle of reciprocity, he is not far from the path. What you do not like when done to yourself, do not do to others.

Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.

There are different kinds of justice. Retributive justice is largely Western. The African understanding is far more restorative - not so much to punish as to redress or restore a balance that has been knocked askew.

We must have friendship for all; we must be merciful toward those that are in misery; when people are happy, we ought to be happy; and to the wicked we must be indifferent. These attitudes will make the mind peaceful.

Let us disperse from our aloofness and serve the weak who made us strong, and cleanse the country in which we live. Let us teach this miserable nation to smile and rejoice with heaven's bounty and glory of life and freedom.

The guidelines for achieving wisdom consist of three leading maxims: 1) Think for yourself; 2) (in communication with other people) Put yourself in the place of the other person; 3) Always think by remaining faithful to your own self.

I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.

If Greeks and Germans cannot agree on a common destiny, and if 500 million affluent Europeans cannot absorb a few million impoverished refugees, what chances do humans have of overcoming the far deeper conflicts that beset our global civilisation?

No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

One of the best things I read was an 1889 essay by Andrew Carnegie called The Gospel of Wealth. It makes the case that the wealthy have a responsibility to return their resources to society, a radical idea at the time that laid the groundwork for philanthropy as we know it today.

It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailer as well to show that you must trust others so that they may trust you; to teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with inclusion and generosity and truth.

Ultimately, peace is just not about politics. It’s about attitudes; about a sense of empathy; about breaking down the divisions that we create for ourselves in our own minds and our own hearts that don’t exist in any objective reality, but that we carry with us generation after generation.

Above all things, lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous, &c. Consider every act of this kind, as an exercise which will strengthen your moral faculties and increase your worth.

The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.

... the fight against suffering must be considered a duty, while the right to care for the happiness of others must be considered a privilege confined to the close circle of their friends. ... Pain, suffering, injustice, and their prevention, these are the eternal problems of public morals, the 'agenda' of public policy ...

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.