Capacity To Care Quotes & Sayings

One is not loved accidentally; one's own power to love produces love - just as being interested makes one interesting. People are concerned with the question of whether they are attractive while they forget that the essence of attractiveness is their own capacity to love. To love a person productively implies to care and to feel responsible for his life, not only for his physical existence but for the growth and development of all his human powers. To love productively is incompatible with being passive, with being an onlooker at the loved person's life; it implies labor and care and the responsibility for his growth. — Erich Fromm

The most important thing in life is style. That is the style of one s existence the characteristic mode of one s actions is basically ultimately what matters. For if man defines himself by doing then style is doubly definitive because style describes the doing. The point is this happiness is a learned condition. And since it is learned and self generating it does not depend upon external circumstances for its perpetuation. This throws a very ironic light on content. And underscores the primacy of style. It is content or rather the consciousness of content that fills the void. But the mere presence of content is not enough. It is style that gives content the capacity to absorb us to move us it is style that makes us care. — Tom Robbins

We are on the path toward becoming the Sparta of the 21st century, armed to the teeth and without the capacity to care for our own people. — Dennis Kucinich

It's an experience I'd like to add to the chorus, that these blue-collar, macho men, like my older brother, had the capacity to say: 'I don't care, I love you anyway.' There are young kids thinking: 'I'll never come out because it's too hard in our communities.' But I'm saying maybe your story can be similar to mine. — Colman Domingo

The great problems we see in the world today will not be solved by people functioning at half capacity cranking out work they don't care about in order to buy more things that will eventually rust and rot. — Todd Henry

The capacity for logical thought is one of the things that makes us human. But in a world of ubiquitous information and advanced analytical tools, logic alone won't do. What will distinguish those who thrive will be their ability to understand what makes their fellow woman or man tick, to forge relationships, and to care for others. — Daniel H. Pink

In my own deepening understanding of myself I find my capacity to serve others is deepened as well. The better I am at self-care the more genuinely nurturing of others I am able to be. — Mary Anne Radmacher

We as women have so much cultural training (on top of whatever familial nurturing history we have) that pushes us to give nurture to everyone but our selves and to look for nurture from anyone but our selves. Practicing and developing our capacity to nurture our selves whenever we need nurturing is vital to our process of becoming more whole. Nurture from others can add on to and amplify what we do for our selves. But to take the very best care of our selves, self-nurturing is the essential baseline from which we must start. As — Robyn L. Posin

the despair displayed by young children on loss of their mother is a normal response to frustration of their absolute need for her presence ... children usually manage to survive, it is true, but at the cost of developing a defensive attitude to emotional detachment, and by becoming self-absorbed and self-reliant to an unusual degree. Typically, they are left with lasting doubts about their capacity to elicit care and affection. — Anthony Stevens

Lord, thank You today that You are a good and a faithful God. Oh, God, increase my faith! Give me this day and this week a greater capacity to trust You, to rest in Your promises. Lord, help me to see You related to the very circumstances I face. Might I see how all that comes our way and how we handle it is directly related to our willingness to rest in Your promises and walk closely with You. Grant that kind of victory to me. May this day be different because of what I've prayed and acknowledged before You in this moment. And I promise to give You thanks and praise and glory for Your care and compassion for my life. In Jesus' name I ask these things. Amen. — James MacDonald

If I had the capacity to withstand instantaneous physical pain, I think I would have even considered taking a razor to my leg. Because after so long of living in that hole, I would have rather felt pain than nothing at all; I just wanted to feel something again. You reach a milestone in such illnesses when denial lifts and you realize that the things you do are truly damaging both to yourself and to others. By then, however, you learn to not care and you embrace the notion that this method of self-harming is both deserved and satisfying. — Leanne Waters

It is a mark of a mean capacity to spend much time on the things which concern the body, such as much exercise, much eating, much drinking, much easing of the body, much copulation. But these things should be done as subordinate things: and let all your care be directed to the mind. — Epictetus

My brethren, let me say, be like Christ at all times. Imitate him in "public." Most of us live in some sort of public capacity-many of us are called to work before our fellow-men every day. We are watched; our words are caught; our lives are examined-taken to pieces. The eagle-eyed, argus-eyed world observes everything we do, and sharp critics are upon us. Let us live the life of Christ in public. Let us take care that we exhibit our Master, and not ourselves-so that we can say, "It is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me." — Charles Spurgeon

I don't care what your excuse is, I don't care what you think God told you to do, if you are in the business of closing children's minds and obliterating their capacity to imagine, and depriving them of a capacity to laugh, then you are a criminal. Maybe not under the law, but under any decent system of morality.
Shame on anyone who brainwashes a child and attacks their individual liberty and deprives them of the freedom that is the very definition of a human being. Shame. — Michael Grant

People who take the risk make a tremendous discovery: The more things you care about, and the more intensely you care, the more alive you are. This capacity for caring can illuminate any relationship: marriage, family, friendships-even the ties of affection that often join humans and animals. Each of us is born with some of it, but whether we let it expand or diminish is largely up to us. To care, you have to surrender the armor of indifference. You have to be willing to act, to make the first move. — Arthur Gordon Webster

When you think about a presidential candidate spending all of his or her time talking to that tiny, tiny fraction of us who have the capacity to fund political elections, it's obvious why the perspective of government is skewed relative to what most Americans care about. — Lawrence Lessig

A totally nondenominational prayer: Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that I be forgiven for anything I may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which I may be eligible after the destruction of my body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen. — Roger Zelazny

Palin was a political Hail Mary, a long bomb in the closing minutes of a game that John McCain and Co. were certain to lose. They didn't care if she had the policy or political or emotional capacity to serve as vice president, let alone president. They were willing to drive the country off a cliff, if that's what it took to win. — Dee Dee Myers

We have the capacity to make sure that every mother has pre-natal care. Yet, we don't do it. What is it about America? It says we don't value children and families. We are hypocrites. — Marian Wright Edelman

Love the creatures for the sake of God and not for themselves. You will never become angry or impatient if you love them for the sake of God. Humanity is not perfect. There are imperfections in every human being, and you will always become unhappy if you look toward the people themselves. But if you look toward God, you will love them and be kind to them, for the world of God is the world of perfection and complete mercy. Therefore, do not look at the shortcomings of anybody; see with the sight of forgiveness. The imperfect eye beholds imperfections. The eye that covers faults looks toward the Creator of souls. He created them, trains and provides for them, endows them with capacity and life, sight and hearing; therefore, they are the signs of His grandeur. You must love and be kind to everybody, care for the poor, protect the weak, heal the sick, teach and educate the ignorant. — Abdu'l- Baha

In the American way of life pleasure involves comfort, convenience, and sexual stimulation. Pleasure, so defined, has little to do with the past and views the future as no more than a repetition of a hedonistically driven present. This market morality stigmatizes others as objects for personal pleasure or bodily stimulation. The reduction of individuals to objects of pleasure is especially evident in the culture industries
television, radio, video, music. Like all Americans, African Americans are influenced greatly by the images of comfort. These images contribute to the predominance of the market-inspired way of life over all others and thereby edge out nonmarket values
love, care, service to others
handed down by preceding generations. The predominance of this way of life among those living in poverty-ridden conditions, with a limited capacity to ward of self-contempt and self-hatred, results in the possible triumph of the nihilistic threat in black America. — Cornel West

Never underestimate your own capacity to care. — Neil Strauss

Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. — Nhat Hanh

Life is a planetary level phenomonon and the Earth has been alive for at least 3000 million years. To me the human move to take responsibility for the living Earth is laughable - the rhethoric of the powerless. The planet takes care of us, not we of it. Our self inflated moral imperative to guide a wayward Earth or heal a sick planet is evidence of our immense capacity for self-delusion. Rather, we need to protect us from ourselves. — Lynn Margulis

The best morals kids get from any book is just the capacity to empathize with other people, to care about the characters and their feelings. So you don't have to write a preachy book to do that. You just have to make it a fun book with characters they care about, and they will become better people as a result. — Louis Sachar

All who say the same things do not possess them in the same manner; and hence the incomparable author of the Art of Conversation pauses with so much care to make it understood that we must
not judge of the capacity of a man by the excellence of a happy remark that we heard him make ... let us penetrate, says he, the mind from which it proceeds ... it will oftenest be seen that
he will be made to disavow it on the spot, and will be drawn very far from this better thought in which he does not believe, to plunge himself into another, quite base and ridiculous. — Blaise Pascal

It still took years for me to let go of learned pattern's of behavior that negated my capacity to give and receive love. One pattern that made the practice of love especially difficult was my constantly choosing to be with men who were emotionally wounded, who were not that interested in loving, even though they desired to be loved. I wanted to know love but was afraid to be intimate. By choosing men who were not interested in being loving, I was able to practice giving love but always within an unfufilling context. Naturally, my need to receive love was not met. I got what I was accustomed to getting. Care and affection, usually mingled with a degree of unkindness, neglect, and on some occasions, out right cruelty. — Bell Hooks

I want to love my wife, care for my kids, and give life to my friends. I want to do the work God made me to do. I want to love God and the world he made. I want to do my part to help it flourish, for my spiritual maturity is not measured by following rules. "The me God made me to be" is measured by my capacity to love. When we live in love, we flourish. That is the dance. — John Ortberg

Cate, I cant say what you want to hear. Not yet. I want you to know that
when I do, I'll mean it. Completely. Irrevocably."
"When?" I ask, voice small but hopeful. "Not if?"
"When." He takes my cold hand in his. "I'm falling in love with you more every day. I don't know if they were the same things I loved about you before, but now
the bit of red in your hair. The way you tilt your chin when you get angry, like you're charging into battle. How fiercely protective you are of the people you care about. How big your capacity for forgiveness is. You are an amazing woman, Cate Cahill. — Jessica Spotswood

It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives. — John Adams

It was quite possible that she had lost the capacity to love and care anymore and that this is how she was going to be for the rest of her life. — Maeve Binchy

I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance. — Pablo Casals

And, because in some hard core of me, in some stubborn trench of selfish refusal, I could not, even at ten years of age, surrender to anything or anyone, I fought that pain. I analysed its offensive, and found its lines of attack. It festered, like the corruption in a wound turned sour, drawing strength from me. I knew enough to know the remedy. Hot iron for infection, cauterize, burn, make it pure. I cut from myself all the weakness of care. The love for my dead, I put aside, secure in a casket, an object of study, a dry exhibit, no longer bleeding, cut loose, set free. The capacity for new love, I burned out. I watered it with acid until the ground lay barren and nothing there would sprout, no flower take root. — Mark Lawrence

As we mature spiritually, we exhibit a growing capacity to care for and appreciate one another in the body of Christ, regardless of our differences. — Joseph Stowell

No birth certificate is issued when friendship is born. There is nothing tangible. There is just a feeling that your life is different and that your capacity to love and care has miraculously been enlarged without any effort on your part. It's like having a tiny apartment and somebody moves in with you. But instead of becoming cramped and crowded, the space expands, and you discover rooms you never knew you had until your friend moved in with you ... — Steve Tesich

Missional leaders know that their church will only grow as large as its capacity to provide ongoing care through a network of small groups and ministry teams. — Gary Rohrmayer

Once you start spending time together, you'll learn things about her that no one else could have told you. Things that you never would have suspected. Like the fact that she snores and has cold feet." He folded his arms and I caught his smile in my peripheral vision. Why was he smiling at me? Hey, was he referring to our nap on the cot? "Maybe you'll learn that she'd make a great doctor or that she has the capacity to care about people she barely knows." He took a dramatic pause, leaning against the wall. "Maybe you'll learn that she's not the spoiled princess you thought she was."
Maybe you'll learn that she'd rather have someone speak directly to her than about her," I said, folding my arms and leaning against the wall. — Suzanne Selfors

The lack of manpower and infrastructural capacity in our Intermediate and Long-term Care sectors are problems that have been with us for the past 10 years. The demand for rehabilitation services will only increase with a rapidly ageing population. I hope the Ministry will share its roadmap to meet the rising demand for rehabilitation services. — Low Thia Khiang

Caring for the soul requires that we be fully present in situations we cannot control and patient as a genuine meaning and a direction unfold. It means seeing familiar things in new ways, listening rather than speaking, learning from patients rather than teaching them, and cultivating the capacity to be amazed. It means recognizing the power of our own humanity to make a difference in the lives of others and valuing it as highly as our expertise. Finally, it means discovering that health care is a front-row seat on mystery and sitting in that seat with open eyes. — Christina M. Puchalski

Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to keep promises to God, to self and to one's relationships that consistently express one's identity and values in spiritually and emotionally healthy ways. Relational congruence is about both constancy and care at the same time. It is about both character and affection, and self-knowledge and authentic self-expression. Relational congruence is the leader's ability to cultivate strong, healthy, caring relationships; maintaining healthy boundaries; and communicating clear expectations, all while staying focused on the mission. — Tod Bolsinger

I've never met a person, I don't care what his condition, in whom I could not see possibilities. I don't care how much a man may consider himself a failure. I believe in him, for he can change the thing that is wrong in his life any time he is ready and prepared to do it. Whenever he develops the desire he can take away from his life the thing that is defeating it. The capacity for reformation and change lies within. — Preston Bradley

When you open yourself to the continually changing, impermanent, dynamic nature of your own being and of reality, you increase your capacity to love and care about other people and your capacity to not be afraid. You're able to keep your eyes open, your heart open, and your mind open. And you notice when you get caught up in prejudice, bias, and aggression. You develop an enthusiasm for no longer watering those negative seeds, from now until the day you die. And, you begin to think of your life as offering endless opportunities to start to do things differently. — Pema Chodron

You can't afford to get sick, and you can't depend on the present health care system to keep you well. It's up to you to protect and maintain your body's innate capacity for health and healing by making the right choices in how you live. — Andrew Weil

If we face our unpleasant feelings with care, affection, and nonviolence, we can transform them into a kind of energy that is healthy and has the capacity to nourish us. By the work of mindful observation, our unpleasant feelings can illuminate so much for us, offering us insight and understanding into ourselves and society. — Nhat Hanh

People ask: Why should I care about the ocean? Because the ocean is the cornerstone of earth's life support system, it shapes climate and weather. It holds most of life on earth. 97% of earth's water is there. It's the blue heart of the planet - we should take care of our heart. It's what makes life possible for us. We still have a really good chance to make things better than they are. They won't get better unless we take the action and inspire others to do the same thing. No one is without power. Everybody has the capacity to do something. — Sylvia A. Earle

To argue that the current extinction event could be averted if people just cared more and were willing to make more sacrifices is not wrong, exactly; still, it misses the point. It doesn't much matter whether people care or don't care. What matters is that people change the world. This capacity predates modernity, — Elizabeth Kolbert

In 1965, worked with Nite Owl bringing street gangs under control. Tackled the Big Figure together. Brought down Underboss together. Good team.
Until he got soft, like rest. Until he quit.
No staying power. None of them. Except Comedian. Met him in 1966. Forceful personality. Didn't care if people liked him. Uncompromising. Admired that.
Of us all, he understood most. About world. About people. About society and what's happening to it.
Things everyone knows in gut. Things everyone too scared to face, too polite to talk about. He understood.
Understood man's capacity for horrors and never quit. Saw the world's black underbelly and never surrendered. Once man has seen, he can never turn his back on it. Never pretend it doesn't exist.
No matter who orders him to look the other way.
We do not do this thing because it is permitted. We do it because we have to.
We do it because we are compelled. — Alan Moore

The truth was, somewhere down the line, between the hospitalisations and the drugs, I'd somehow lost the cornerstone of humanity: the ability to pretend, to counterfeit the basics of social interaction, to smile when you didn't feel like smiling, to seem like you cared about other people when you lacked the capacity to care about yourself. So that left me, graceless and wearied, pretending to pretend. — Alexis Hall

What compels me to fight this society is, of course, outrage over injustice, a love of freedom, and a feeling of responsibility for perpetuating and enlarging the human spirit - its beauty, creativity, and latent capacity to improve the world. I do not care to come to terms with an irrational society that corrodes all that is valuable in humanity, that eats away at all that is beautiful and noble in the human experience. — Murray Bookchin

What everyone on this path shares is the inspiration to rest in uncertainty - cheerfully. The root of suffering is resisting the certainty that no matter what the circumstances, uncertainty is all we truly have. Pema's teachings encourage us to experiment with becoming comfortable with uncertainty, then see what happens. What we call uncertainty is actually the open quality of any given moment. When we can be present for this openness - as it is always present for us - we discover that our capacity to love and care for others is limitless. — Pema Chodron

A society that does not value its older people denies its roots and endangers its future. Let us strive to enhance their capacity to support themselves for as long as possible and, when they cannot do so anymore, to care for them. — Nelson Mandela

We like who we become in response to injustice: it makes it easy to choose a side. Our capacity to care, to get angry, is called forth like some muscle we weren't entirely aware we had. — Leslie Jamison