The good man is the friend of all living things.

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.

I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.

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.

I have a big gay and lesbian following and they’ve been very loyal and kind to me.

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.

Some people are jerks, and some people aren’t.

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.

We just cannot worry about ourselves.

If anything, we should feel sorry for the people who want us to feel bad about ourselves, because they are the ones struggling for approval. In middle school, bullies tortured other kids because they thought it would make people like them more.

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

I always think if you are asking somebody for something it is a good idea to give them something first.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

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

The capability of negotiating… is something that means you not only have to understand fully what you believe and what your national interests are but in order to be a really good negotiator, you have to try to figure out what the other person on the other side of the table has in mind.

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

It is another’s fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.

Except for the young or very happy, I can’t say I am sorry for anyone who dies.

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.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

The happiest people I know as a nation are the Burmese; their brightness and cheeriness are proverbial. Kindness to animals is one of their greatest ‚weaknesses‘; no Burmese will kill an animal, even if it is to put it out of pain.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.

The poorest people are the sweetest people.

You can be rich in spirit, kindness, love and all those things that you can’t put a dollar sign on.

When the kids are laughing in the audience, I tear up, I’m so happy I did a nice thing.

Sooner or later we’re all someone’s dog.

I look after people.

There really is no difference between the bully and the victim.

When you have enough understanding and compassion in you, then that amount of understanding and compassion will try to express itself in action. And your practice should help you to cultivate more understanding and compassion.

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

You have to see and smell and feel the circumstances of people to really understand them.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

Life is relationship, living is relationship. We cannot live if you and I have built a wall around ourselves and just peep over that wall occasionally. Unconsciously, deeply, under the wall, we are related.

I’m very sensitive. I remember, as a kid at school, if someone in the classroom was sad or angry, it could have a great impact on me.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

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

When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.

A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

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.

The funny thing is people won’t let me pay for things. I’ll be in a restaurant and the manager will say, ‚Oh no, it’s on the house.‘

A friend of mine jokes that I have a painstaking royalty complex. Like maybe I was a duke in a past life.

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given.

The exercise of benevolence is joy to loving hearts: the more pain it costs, the more joy it is. Kind actions make us happy, and in such joy we find communion with the great heart of Jesus.

What’s important for my daughter to know is that… if you are fortunate to have opportunity, it is your duty to make sure other people have those opportunities as well.

What nicer thing can you do for somebody than make them breakfast?

A faithful woman can become a devoted daughter of God – more concerned with being righteous than with being selfish, more anxious to exercise compassion than to exercise dominion, more committed to integrity than to notoriety. And she knows of her own infinite worth.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Sadly, of course, there is real evil in the world. You watch the news, and you see all of the people suffering and so much cruelty.

Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.

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

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

Everybody likes a compliment.

Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart, don’t know how to laugh either.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

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.

What we have found in this country, and maybe we’re more aware of it now, is one problem that we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice.

A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.