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

For a tear is quickly dried, especially when shed for the misfortunes of others.

Generosity is nothing else than a craze to possess. All which I abandon, all which I give, I enjoy in a higher manner through the fact that I give it away. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives.

A man will speedily sit down and sympathize with a friend’s griefs, but if he sees him honored and esteemed, he is apt to regard him as a rival and does not so readily rejoice with him. This ought not to be; without effort, we ought to be happy in our brother’s happiness.

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.

The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless.

Anybody who has been discriminated against, who comes from a group that’s been discriminated against, knows what it’s like.

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.

It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.

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.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

A saint is tolerant and is attentive to the pleadings of other human beings, not only to spoken messages but to unspoken messages as well.

My father wasn’t around when I was a kid, and I used to always say, ‚Why me? Why don’t I have a father? Why isn’t he around? Why did he leave my mother?‘ But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, ‚I don’t know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?‘

Technology is unlocking the innate compassion we have for our fellow human beings.

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.

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

Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away.

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.

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

You know that your happiness and suffering depend on the happiness and suffering of others. That insight helps you not to do wrong things that will bring suffering to yourself and to other people.

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.

The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.

We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.

They might not need me; but they might. I’ll let my head be just in sight; a smile as small as mine might be precisely their necessity.

Don’t judge other people. For example, if you want God’s anointing to be on you for parenting, you need to be careful not to criticize other parents.

We are not cisterns made for hoarding, we are channels made for sharing.

When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.

I am for people. I can’t help it.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

It’s that wonderful old-fashioned idea that others come first and you come second. This was the whole ethic by which I was brought up. Others matter more than you do, so ‚don’t fuss, dear; get on with it.‘

One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.

Never have we stolen the intelligences of other peoples. On the contrary, in Cuba we have trained tens of thousands of doctors and other top-level professionals, for free, in order to send them back to their own countries.

In order to have friends, you must first be one.

When I was two, a dragonfly flew near me. A man knocked it to the ground and trod on it. I remember crying because I’d caused the dragonfly to be killed.

I can’t read the newspaper without crying. I’m easily affected by horrible events, you see.

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.

My father always taught me that when you help other people, then God will give you double. And that’s what has really happened to me. When I have helped other people who are in need, God has helped me more.

When you’re around the kids, you feel like you act the most grown up just because you’re supposed to lead. I say things, like every other parent, that reminds you of your own parents. One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.

A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything.

The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren’t in a very good mood.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.

Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

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

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

Listen, I think that people want a president who is going to be interested in the things that keep them up at night, the things that are weighing on them, the things that are debilitating and can be addressed.

To be social is to be forgiving.

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 greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

I actually feel like women in my position, when we have all at our disposal to help us, shouldn’t complain when we consider all of the people who are really struggling and don’t have the means or support. Many people are single, raising children. That’s hard.

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.

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

There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude.

Stay humble and be concerned for the less fortunate.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

I hate letting my teammates down. I know I’m not going to make every shot. Sometimes I try to make the right play, and if it results in a loss, I feel awful. I don’t feel awful because I have to answer questions about it. I feel awful in that locker room because I could have done something more to help my teammates win.

It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that there are people who can’t or won’t see what Black Lives Matter is trying to accomplish.

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one’s key to the experience of others.