This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
No person is without sense of compassion, or a sense of shame, or a sense of courtesy, or a sense of right and wrong. The sense of compassion is the beginning of humanity; the sense of shame is the beginning of righteousness; the sense of courtesy is the beginning of decorum [li]; the sense of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. Every person has within him these four beginnings; just as he has four limbs.
Beginning | Compassion | Courtesy | Humanity | Right | Righteousness | Sense | Shame | Wisdom | Wrong |
Robert Kennedy, fully Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be black or they be white.
Compassion | Justice | Love | Need | Wisdom |
No matter how idealistic our hopes... we eventually learn that spirituality is not about leaving life's problems behind, but about continually confronting them with honesty and courage. It is about ending our feeling of separation from others by healing our relationships with parents, co-workers, and friends. it is about bringing heightened awareness and compassion to our family life, careers, and community service.
Awareness | Compassion | Courage | Family | Honesty | Life | Life | Parents | Problems | Service | Spirituality | Awareness | Learn |
For no reason whatever should one judge the actions of creatures or their ;motives. Even when we see that it is an actual sin, we ought not to pass judgment on it, but have holy and sincere compassion and offer it up to God with humble and devout prayer.
Compassion | God | Judgment | Motives | Prayer | Reason | Sin | God |
The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves “inside the skin” of the other.
Ability | Compassion | Love | Suffering | Understanding |
William Faulkner, fully William Cuthbert Faulkner
I believe that man will not merely endure, he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
Compassion | Endurance | Man | Sacrifice | Soul | Spirit | Will |
William Faulkner, fully William Cuthbert Faulkner
I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man; it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
Compassion | Courage | Duty | Endurance | Glory | Heart | Man | Need | Past | Pity | Sacrifice | Soul | Spirit | Will | Privilege |
Compassion is the effortless radiance of emptiness, free of concepts and beyond description. That is how a buddha’s activity for beings can be limitless. If you understand this, you will know that even when a cool breeze blows upon a sick person burning with fever, that itself is the blessings and compassion of the buddhas.
Blessings | Compassion | Will | Understand |
Ted Kennedy, fully Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy
The commitment I seek is not to outworn views but to old values that will never wear out. Programs may sometimes become obsolete, but the ideal of fairness always endures. Circumstances may change, but the work of compassion must continue.
Circumstances | Commitment | Compassion | Fairness | Will | Work | Old |
Haim Ginott, fully Haim G. Ginott, orignially Ginzburg
Acknowledging experience and reflecting feelings are helpful interpersonal skills. However, they are not tricks or gimmicks. Nor can they be used mechanically. They are helpful only within a context of concern and respect. In human relations the agents of help are never solely the techniques, but the person who employs them. Without compassion and authenticity, the techniques fail.
Compassion | Experience | Feelings |
Huston Smith, fully Huston Cummings Smith
Understanding, then, can lead to love. But the revese is also true. Love brings understanding; the two are reciprocal. So we must listen to understand, but we must also listen to put into play the compassion that the wisdom traditions all enjoin, for it is impossible to love another without hearing that other. If we are to be true to these religions, we must attend to others as deeply and as alertly as we hope that they will attend to us; Thomas Merton made this point by saying that God speaks to us in three places: tin scripture, in our deepest selves, and in the voices of the stranger. We must have the graciousness to receive as well as to give, for there is no greater way to depersonalize another than to speak without also listening.
Compassion | God | Hope | Love | Play | Receive | Will | Wisdom | God |
Huston Smith, fully Huston Cummings Smith
There is a great deal more to religion than mystical experiences. Religions try to provide answers to the mysteries of life, but they are also concerned with enhancing the quality of life. The great religions encourage and promote compassion and loving-kindness.
Compassion | Mystical | Religion |
Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL
Compassion is not against anger. When anger disappears, compassion is. Compassion is not to be fought for; it is not against passion. When passion disappears, compassion is. Compassion is your nature.
Anger | Compassion | Passion |
Jane Goodall, fully Dame Jane Morris Goodall, born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall
And if we dare to look into those eyes, then we shall feel their suffering in our hearts. More and more people have seen that appeal and felt it in their hearts. All around the world there is an awakening of understanding and compassion, and understanding that reaches out to help the suffering animals in their vanishing homelands. That embraces hungry, sick, and desperate human beings, people who are starving while the fortunate among us have so much more than we need. And if, one by one, we help them, the hurting animals, the desperate humans, then together we shall alleviate so much of the hunger, fear, and pain in the world. Together we can bring change to the world, gradually replacing fear and hatred with compassion and love. Love for all living beings.
Awakening | Change | Compassion | Fear | Love | Pain | People | Suffering | Understanding | World |
John Steinbeck, fully John Ernst Steinbeck
The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat - for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally-flags of hope and of emulation.
Capacity | Compassion | Defeat | Greatness | Heart | Hope | Spirit | War | Weakness |
We should invest in kids like these," we're told, "because it will be more expensive not to." Why do our natural compassion and religious inclinations need to find a surrogate in dollar savings to be voiced or acted on? Why not give these kids the best we have because we are a wealthy nation and they are children and deserve to have some fun while they are still less than four feet high?
Children | Compassion | Fun | Need | Will |
By contrition we are made clean, by compassion we are made ready, and by true longing toward God we are made worthy. These are three means, as I understand, whereby that all souls come to heaven: that is to say, that have been sinners in earth and shall be saved: for by these three medicines it behoveth that every soul be healed.
Dōgen, aka Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, titled as Dōgen Zenji NULL
Refraining from all evil, not clinging to birth and death, working in deep compassion for all sentient beings, respecting those over you and pitying those below you, without any detesting or desiring, worrying or lamentation - this is what is called Buddha. Do not search beyond it.
Birth | Compassion | Search |
Kurt Hahn, fully Kurt Martin "the rod" Hahn
Six Declines of Modern Youth: Decline of Fitness due to modern methods of locomotion [moving about];Decline of Initiative and Enterprise due to the widespread disease of spectatoritis; Decline of Memory and Imagination due to the confused restlessness of modern life; Decline of Skill and Care due to the weakened tradition of craftsmanship; Decline of Self-discipline due to the ever-present availability of stimulants and tranquilizers; And worst of all: Decline of Compassion due to the unseemly haste with which modern life is conducted or as William Temple called "spiritual death".
Care | Compassion | Disease | Haste | Imagination | Initiative | Life | Life | Memory | Restlessness | Skill | Tradition |