It is an open question whether any behavior
based on fear of eternal punishment
can be regarded as ethical
or should be regarded as merely cowardly.
- Margaret Mead
A man is truly ethical only when he obeys
the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist,
and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
- Albert Schweitzer
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.
- Albert Schweitzer
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.
- Albert Schweitzer
Let me give you a definition of ethics:
It is good to maintain and further life
it is bad to damage and destroy life.
- Albert Schweitzer
Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.
- Albert Schweitzer
I do not believe in immortality of the individual,
and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern
with no superhuman authority behind it.
- Albert Einstein
The first step in the evolution of ethics
is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.
- Albert Schweitzer
Ethics is the activity of man directed to secure
the inner perfection of his own personality.
- Albert Schweitzer
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.
- Albert Schweitzer
You may call God love, you may call God goodness.
But the best name for God is compassion.
- Meister Eckhart
Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
- written on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor
Let your sympathies and your compassion
be always with the under dog in the fight -
this is magnanimity;
but bet on the other one - this is business.
- Mark Twain
No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)
The purpose of human life is to serve,
and to show compassion and the will to help others.
- Albert Schweitzer
People will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget
how you made them feel.
- Maya Angelou
If we have no peace,
it is because we have forgotten
that we belong to each other.
- Mother Teresa
One can not reflect in streaming water.
Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.
- Lao Tzu
Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
- Arthur Schopenhauer
If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need
but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
- 1 John 3:17
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl
The vast Cathedral of Your Being
becomes sanctuary for all creation
as you celebrate the universal sacraments
of compassion and joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
People don't care how much you know
until they know how much they care.
- John C. Maxwell
With courage, you will dare to take risks,
have the strength to be compassionate,
and the wisdom to be humble.
Courage is the foundation of integrity.
- Keshavan Nair
The most terrible poverty is loneliness
and the feeling of being unloved.
- Mother Teresa
The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others
will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.
- Helen Keller
Our compassion and acts of selflessness
take us to the deeper truths.
- Amma
Indifference and neglect often
do much more damage than outright dislike.
- J. K. Rowling
I have always found that mercy bears
richer fruits than strict justice.
- Abraham Lincoln
We receive this food in gratitude to all beings
Who have helped to bring it to our table,
And vow to respond in turn to those in need
With wisdom and compassion.
- Buddhist Blessing
One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.
- Mother Teresa
A generous heart, kind speech,
and a life of service and compassion
are the things which renew humanity.
- The Buddha
Through violence, you may 'solve' one problem,
but you sow the seeds for another.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
Love is the absence of judgment.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
Kind words can be short and easy to speak,
but their echoes are truly endless.
- Mother Teresa
To know even one life has
breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I Receive ALL of Life with Thanksgiving -
I have gratitude for EVERYTHING
that has ever occurred to bring me to this moment.
I give thanks for the joys and the sufferings,
the moments of peace and the flashes of anger,
the compassion and the indifference,
the roar of my courage and the cold sweat of my fear.
I accept gratefully the entirety of my past and my present life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
When will our consciences grow so tender
that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Kindness is better than piety.
- Yiddish Proverb
The brightest stars are those who
shine for the benefit of others.
- Anonymous
Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as
your own unguarded thoughts.
- The Buddha
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
- St. Francis of Assisi
Whosoever is spared personal pain
must feel himself called
to help in diminishing the pain of others.
We must all carry our share of
the misery which lies upon the world.
- Albert Schweitzer
No one is to be called an enemy,
all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm.
You have no enemy except yourselves.
- St. Francis of Assisi
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor.
Do you know your next door neighbor?
- Mother Teresa
One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life
comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.
- Robert A. Heinlein
Don't let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
One of the secrets of life is that
all that is really worth the doing
is what we do for others.
- Lewis Carroll
The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis,
but rather the feeling of being unwanted.
- Mother Teresa
We are formed and molded by our thoughts.
Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts
give joy when they speak or act.
Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.
- The Buddha
If in our daily life we can smile,
if we can be peaceful and happy,
not only we, but everyone will profit from it.
This is the most basic kind of peace work.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln
What do we live for, if it is not
to make life less difficult for each other?
- George Eliot
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake
is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
- Pema Chodron
At the root of all the harm we cause is ignorance.
- Pema Chodron
I soothe my conscience now with the thought that
it is better for hard words to be on paper
than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.
- Anne Frank
Be kind whenever possible; and it is always possible.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
Where there is charity and wisdom,
there is neither fear nor ignorance.
- St. Francis of Assisi
Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care
for people will hear them and be influenced
by them for good or ill.
- The Buddha
You can't live a perfect day without doing something
for someone who will never be able to repay you.
- John Wooden
If you wish to experience peace,
provide peace for another.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
Give to your relatives, and to the needy, and to travelers.
Do not squander your wealth in wantonness.
- Quran 17:26
When we do the best that we can,
we never know what miracle is wrought in our life,
or in the life of another.
- Helen Keller
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures
is not to hate them,
but to be indifferent to them:
that's the essence of inhumanity.
- George Bernard Shaw
We ourselves feel that what we are doing
is just a drop in the ocean.
But the ocean would be less
because of that missing drop.
- Mother Teresa
We can never be the better for our religion
if our neighbor is the worse for it.
- Anonymous
For some of us, the world appears to provide
only a fixed quantity of each resource -
a limited amount of food, of money,
of love, of success, of appreciation.
For others, life is unlimited.
Their world expands with the generosity, compassion,
inventiveness, and service that they contribute.
In this world-view, money that is spent
or given away returns multiplied.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We cause ourselves untold misery whenever we believe
others to be imperfect and try to change them.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.
And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life,
that no man can sincerely try
to help another without helping himself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.