I don’t like to see animals in pain. That was very uncomfortable to me. I don’t like factory farming. I’m not an advocate for the meat industry.

I’m always pushing for human responsibility. Given that chimpanzees and many other animals are sentient and sapient, then we should treat them with respect.

If we want to fight people in the world, we should fight them with pillows – pillows stuffed with food, medicine, music… That would be so much cheaper than bombs.

The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion’s roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance.

I think those who have a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their own life, and those that help them should be free from prosecution.

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.

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

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

Love… it surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.

It’s amazing if you just listen to people. They tell you all the time things that you can do for them, without even realizing what they’re doing. I’ve learned to take notice of those things and if it’s something that I feel God wants me to do, then I try to do that to add joy to their life.

Encouragement to others is something everyone can give. Somebody needs what you have to give. It may not be your money; it may be your time. It may be your listening ear. It may be your arms to encourage. It may be your smile to uplift. Who knows?

How can we help President Obama?

Give to everyone who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again. And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.

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

I just don’t like killing creatures.

Although the big word on the left is ‚compassion,‘ the big agenda on the left is dependency.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

The correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors.

Strength and compassion are not mutually exclusive.

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.

I spent years studying the teachings of Patanjali, and he reminded us several thousand years ago that when we are steadfast – which means that we never slip in our abstention of thoughts of harm directed toward others – then all living creatures cease to feel enmity in our presence.

Artists have a responsibility to speak and to act when governments fail, and if we don’t do that, we really deserve the world we get.

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.

You’ve got to watch the politics of AIDS. The politics of AIDS can work both for and against the victims of AIDS.

These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.

We have an obligation to help people that cannot help themselves. The mentally retarded, the physically retarded, et cetera.

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

We make the future sustainable when we invest in the poor, not when we insist on their suffering.

I want to make a policy statement. I am unabashedly in favor of women.

What do you regard as most humane? To spare someone shame.

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.

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 protestor I think will speak up for the world’s poorest.

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.

I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.

My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

The highest form of worship is the worship of unselfish Christian service. The greatest form of praise is the sound of consecrated feet seeking out the lost and helpless.

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.

Rose Adams is a wonderful Christian woman who cared for my mother, Morrow Coffey Graham, in her last years of life.

‚Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after.

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.

I’ve been fighting with Acorn, alongside Acorn, on issues you care about, my entire career.

We need every person on Earth to acknowledge that climate change is real and encourage each other and our leaders to address the challenge.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.

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.

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

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

When people need love and understanding and support the most is when they deserve it the least.

Real magic in relationships means an absence of judgment of others.

I got quite annoyed after the Haiti earthquake. A baby was taken from the wreckage and people said it was a miracle. It would have been a miracle had God stopped the earthquake. More wonderful was that a load of evolved monkeys got together to save the life of a child that wasn’t theirs.

Respect the burden.

I feel like if you’re a really good human being, you can try to find something beautiful in every single person, no matter what.

We must do everything in our power to cease the behaviour that makes children everywhere feel afraid.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‚If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?‘ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‚If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?‘

You can see neurosis from below – as a sickness – as most psychiatrists see it. Or you can understand it as a compassionate man might: respecting the neurosis as a fumbling and inefficient effort toward good ends.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered animals, how can we expect any ideal living conditions on this earth?