The25Virtues
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COMPASSION
Sympathy and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.

Benevolence, charity, clemency, commiseration, compunction, condolence, consideration, empathy, fellow feeling, grace, heart, humaneness, humanity, kindness, lenity, mercy, soft-heartedness, softness, sympathy, tenderheartedness,
tenderness, yearning...


From The25Virtues Survey:

Being aware and feeling the effect of someone else’s situation. I believe we are all universally linked, and compassion is the key to that understanding.

For both self and others. The sense that we are in a shared struggle to survive and thrive, and need mutual support and understanding for our successes and setbacks.

The world would be a better place if everyone had some.
Compassion is true understanding of some one other than you. It is essential to understand another persons suffering or joy. It is community, it is humanity.

Never judge a man till you walked in his shoes.

Compassion is necessary to the other core virtues

No one finds himself or herself in need of compassion by choice, but by necessity. Compassion for others implies empathy and a desire to do what is felt as being right and good for another. Showing compassion gives me personal peace. Receiving compassion shows me the good in the world.

Giving of yourself, with an empathetic view, to someone else

Being concerned about others and acting on it. Not just pity.

Having an understanding of others' experiences and feelings.

Walk in their shoes, for the grace of god go I.

Ability to see a situation from someone else's point of view and better understanding them because of that. Lack of compassion allows people to put whole groups into the "other" category, which can lead to racism, sexism and ultimately violence.

Taking action to relieve the pain and suffering of other people. Why? It's too painful not to.

Being there for others in their time of need. It's just something I've always tried to do. I really can't explain it or why. I think some people are just driven to/by it more than others.

Encompasses humility, lays the foundation for peace, and makes justice vital.

Empathy/mercy, which may be deserved or undeserved.

This is important to me because one of my other core values is justice, and I feel that without compassion, justice can become harsh, impersonal and not account for individual life experiences.

Compassion goes hand in hand with love and kindness. We have to feel something when we see others in need.

Compassion is about caring for others' distress and desiring to alleviate it. We are all one human family and we need to care about each other; otherwise we become psychopathic in our indifference.

Compassion is important because it shows you care about someone or have feelings for the person.

We are all evolving every day, doing the best we can- we must offer compassion to one another as we grow on our journeys

Being able to put yourself in someone else’s place, compassion helps me to forgive other people for making mistakes, and being human.

Caring unconditionally.

Taking care of one another's hearts, bodies and souls without judgment.

[empathy] the ability to feel what someone else is feeling.
Being able to see the situation thru other eyes.

Compassion bubbles up... it's not always rational, either, but it's arresting. To be pardoned undeservedly is a gift worth bowing down for. Compassion means second chances are possible, and without second chances, mistakes can't be overcome. I'm all about second chances, so I'd better be all about granting them to others.

Compassion is "feeling with" -- it is having empathy for all kinds of people and their trials. Without it, you can't really love other people.

Empathy and understanding.

Even for the self-centered population.

Feel for your fellow "person"... your feelings for others is how you would want them to feel for you

Feeling connection with the Thou and serving the high good/extending love and understanding to another being and acting on it, or what good am I?

I feel other's pain and anguish as if it were my own. It is a guide from which I hope to make some positive difference in the world.

Kindness and concern for fellow beings (human and otherwise). I believe I am a stronger, better person when I have compassion for others and operate within that framework.

Relating to feelings, desire to alleviate suffering; how we find the strength to help others.

The capacity to empathize with another in a meaningful way, the ability to genuinely forgive. Imp: It's just as good to give it as receive.

Thinking of others before yourself.

To be empathetic and respectful of others.

To feel another's pain or sadness.

To suffer or feel with another person, entering into their experience. The ability to enter into someone's experience gives meaning to human relationships.

Understanding and not judging others. This world has become so self-centered, forgetting that each and every one of us has flaws, imperfections, and "issues". I think we need to stop judging others, and remember that we are all human and everybody needs love, compassion, and understanding.

Wanting to help others who have had misfortunes or who are less fortunate. I never feel like when you walk by someone that you should expect a smile because we have no idea what that person is truly experiencing. No matter what kind of life we have, we can always find time to help make someone else's situation better.

Truly caring for others in that you look at the world through their eyes instead of judging them through your own. We need to feel for others, see what they see, and take a stand for them.
 Quotations

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.           

Dalia Lama


Compassion is the basis of all morality.           

Arthur Schopenhauer


By compassion we make others’ misery our own, and so, but relieving them, we relieve ourselves also           

Thomas Browne


Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.           

Eric Hoffer


Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy.           

Chogyam Trungpa


Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.           

Mason Cooley


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


I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.           

Lao Tzu


If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.           

Francis of Assisi


Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.           

Albert Einstein


Righteous is the one who was able to demonstrate compassion in face of human suffering.           

Aleksander Kwasniewski


The dew of compassion is a tear.           

Lord Byron


There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos.           

Milan Kundera


We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology.           

Ron Reagan


You may call God love, you may call God goodness. But the best name for God is compassion.           

Meister Eckhart