We need to, you know, restore people. 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.

What I have in common with the character in ‚Truman‘ is this incredible need to please people. 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.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.

As a medical doctor, I have known the face of adversity. I have seen much of death and dying, suffering and sorrow. I also remember the plight of students overwhelmed by their studies and of those striving to learn a foreign language. And I recall the fatigue and frustration felt by young parents with children in need.

We must, all of us, learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

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

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

I think it is a sin to look at another person as inferior to yourself because of race or because of ethnic background, and I think the greatest thing to do is to pray that God will give you love for them, and I do.

Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. They don’t do any good, but they don’t necessarily do any harm. It’s touching to be thought of in that way. It makes up for those who tell me that I’ve got my just desserts.

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?‘

Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

Love other human beings as you would love yourself.

My mother told me, ‚Son, nobody else but God knows.‘ And that’s what I’m about – reaching out to the people, crying with them, giving them hope. Visiting the hospital, visiting the kids with cancer, visiting the adults, and stuff like that. That’s what I do.

I have to be in tune. All the time. I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is.

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.

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.

God’s dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.

To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.

You never make fun of anybody with a club foot or a withered arm, but it’s open season on anybody who stutters.

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

God’s mercy is fresh and new every morning.

Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.

We came into a broken world. And we’re the cleanup crew.

To add value to others, one must first value others.

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 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.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal’s ‚Pensees‘ and read, ‚I am the great silent spaces between worlds.‘

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it’s at the end of your arm, as you get older, remember you have another hand: The first is to help yourself, the second is to help others.

Many people look at me and think they know me but they don’t at all. This is the real me. I am a humble person, a feeling person. A person who cares about others, who wants to help others.

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

The more credit you give away, the more will come back to you. The more you help others, the more they will want to help you.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

Remember that a gesture of friendship, no matter how small, is always appreciated.

What I remember as a child is that other kids didn’t care about suffering. I always did.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

Every loss of life is terrible.

Instead of judging people, we need to pray.

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

The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better.

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

‚Suffering should not make us bitter people,‘ my mother once said, ‚it should make us better comforters.‘ Young people need to hear this from those who have walked before them, because someday they’ll be walking those same steps, but there may not be anyone following behind.

Animals are my friends… and I don’t eat my friends.

A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy.

After many years of great mercy, after tasting of the powers of the world to come, we still are so weak, so foolish; but, oh! when we get away from self to God, there all is truth and purity and holiness, and our heart finds peace, wisdom, completeness, delight, joy, victory.

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.

Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.

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

When you give, it comes back to you.

If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

When you truly accept that those children in some far off place in the global village have the same value as you in God’s eyes or even in just your eyes, then your life is forever changed; you see something that you can’t un-see.

I come from a poor family, I have seen poverty. The poor need respect, and it begins with cleanliness.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.

There are folks who now know black families – like the Johnsons on ‚Black-ish‘ or the folks on ‚Modern Family.‘ They become part of who you are. You share their pains. You understand their fears. They make you laugh, and they change how you see the world.

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well.