William Faulkner - Albert Einstein - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Thomas Merton - Talib Kweli - Arthur Schopenhauer - Martin Luther King - The Upinashads -
Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world ... would do this, it would change the earth. William Faulkner
A human being is a part of the whole called by us ‘Universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind. Albert Einstein, letter 12 February 1950, cited and translated Calaprice
Compassion is the chief law of human existence. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another. Thomas Merton
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
Skip the religion and politics, head straight to the compassion. Everything else is a distraction. Talib Kweli
Compassion is the basis of morality. Arthur Schopenhauer
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. Martin Luther King
Be compassionate. One should practise this same triad: self-restraint, giving, compassion. The Upanishads, Brihadaranayaka Upanishad