Wisdom Quotes

The act of compassion begins with full attention, just as rapport does. You have to really see the person. If you see the person, then naturally, empathy arises. If you tune into the other person, you feel with them. If empathy arises, and if that person is in dire need, then empathic concern can come. You want to help them, and then that begins a compassionate act. So I'd say that compassion begins with attention.

- Daniel Goleman


People love to talk but hate to listen. Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us. You can listen like a blank wall or like a splendid auditorium where every sound comes back fuller and richer.

- Alice Duer Miller


If it's very painful for you to criticize your friends -- you're safe in doing it. But if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that's the time to hold your tongue.

- Alice Duer Miller


The greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being.

- Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lamat


Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error.

- Linus Pauling


Facts are the air of scientists. Without them you can never fly.

- Linus Pauling


I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. There is not any part of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surfaces of the water.

- D. H. Lawrence

Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.


I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.

- Harry S Truman


Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn


Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.

- Bishop Desmond Tutu


A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson


Relationship is the substance of our connections: things like family or blood relatives, as well as covenant relationship like marriage or adoption. Even beyond that, relationship can also be defined by association (church family, workplace, neighborhoods, students, etc.), or just the frequency in which we connect with people (if I see someone often, then I might say I have a relationship with them).

- Dan Lentz


You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.
(from the character Atticus Finch)

- Harper Lee


A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?

- Albert Einstein