A tear dries quickly when it is shed for troubles of others.

Still and all, why bother? Here’s my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

One thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

I was never focused on me, me, me all the time. I was always focused on somebody else.

We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.

There are techniques of Buddhism, such as meditation, that anyone can adopt. And, of course, there are Christian monks and nuns who already use Buddhist methods in order to develop their devotion, compassion, and ability to forgive.

Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.

Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.

Anyone who is practicing understanding and compassion can exemplify true power. Anyone can be a Buddha.

Not only do I think being nice and kind is easy but being kind, in my opinion, is important.

We have observed that, in society and the world in which we live, selfishness has increased more than love for others, and that men of good will must work, each with his own strengths and expertise, to ensure that love for others increases until it is equal and possibly exceeds love for oneself.

Everyone has the potential to become an encourager. You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to be a genius. You don’t have to have it all together. All you have to do is care about people and initiate.

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out.

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.

I don’t like to beat people down. They need to be lifted up.

I have no private interest in the reception of my inventions by the world, having never made, nor proposed to make, the least profit by any of them.

Today we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation’s promise through civility, courage, compassion and character.

Most damage that others do us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion.

We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

People who add value to others do so intentionally. I say that because to add value, leaders must give of themselves, and that rarely occurs by accident.

Loving others always costs us something and requires effort. And you have to decide to do it on purpose. You can’t wait for a feeling to motivate you.

The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit.

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

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

Having a bunch of cats around is good. If you’re feeling bad, you just look at the cats, you’ll feel better because they know that everything is just as it is. There’s nothing to get excited about. They just know. They’re saviours.

The wise man does not lay up his own treasures. The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.

I feel like I write so that people can think of it as theirs. If my song is exactly about your life right now, then it is – I don’t even want to say that it’s mine, because it’s yours.

Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.

When you really listen to another person from their point of view, and reflect back to them that understanding, it’s like giving them emotional oxygen.

I feel like I want to take care of everyone and I also feel this terrible guilt if I am unable to. And I have felt this way ever since all this success started.

No matter what message you are about to deliver somewhere, whether it is holding out a hand of friendship, or making clear that you disapprove of something, is the fact that the person sitting across the table is a human being, so the goal is to always establish common ground.

Nothing can make injustice just but mercy.

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.

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.

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

Understanding is a two-way street.

A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‚Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?‘ We must always consider the person.

Social Security is based on a principle. It’s based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat.

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.

Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.

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

A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.

I’m a people pleaser. I hold a lot of things in. I’m always making sure everybody is okay. I usually don’t rage; I usually don’t curse.

Consider, when you are enraged at any one, what you would probably think if he should die during the dispute.

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.

Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.

I have spent the greater part of my life in a hotel room with seven or eight kids, looking after everyone, sorting out fights, wiping noses, handing out towels, not having a clean towel left for me.

A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.

You give before you get.

One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.

Charity bestowed upon those who are worthy of it is like good seed sown on a good soil that yields an abundance of fruits. But alms given to those who are yet under the tyrannical yoke of the passions are like seed deposited in a bad soil. The passions of the receiver of the alms choke, as it were, the growth of merits.

I just really believe people have to get hungry. I think maybe what we need to do, instead of trying to stuff our beliefs down people’s throats, is just pray for them to really be hungry and to see their neediness.

Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.

Often, little situations trigger enormous reactions. Be there, present for it. Your partner will find it easier to see it in you, and you will find it easier to see it in them.

What we won when all of our people united must not be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as president.