Compassion By Women Quotes & Sayings

We're allowed to have the Great Mother in our spiritual paradigm if she is docile and tame like Mary, or as the Goddess that saves women in childbirth or men from bombs and typhoons. But would patriarchy have us reclaim the full meaning of the Queen Mother of Compassion, or any Goddess, if it meant embodying her might bring our world into balance and emulating her caused women to no longer serve the status quo? I think looking more deeply at Goddesses like Kwan Yin/Kannon might make the patriarchy very nervous. — Karen Tate

We dismantle the predator by countering its diatribes with our own nurturant truths. Predator: You never finish anything you start. Yourself: I finish many things. We dismantle the assaults of the natural predator by taking to heart and working with what is truthful in what the predator says and then discarding the rest. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The most reliable topic for small talk is the goings-on of stars whether they're rising or falling, and whether nor not a particular story is truth or fiction. This is way out of balance. It invades the privacy of men and women who didn't give up being human when they became famous, and it negates the meaning inherent in our own lives. (300) — Victoria Moran

I think I have found a statistical link between excessive volunteerism and victimology, the pairing of accomplished, intelligent, motivated women who are preyed upon because of the depth of their compassion. — A.J. Rich

The Purpose of life is to thrive and save lives with passion! Save Yazidis today with love and compassion! — Widad Akreyi

I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which man structurally does not have, does not have it because he cannot have it. He's just incapable of it. — Barbara Jordan

My husband, Andrius, says that evil will rule until good men or women choose to act. I believe him. This testimony was written to create an absolute record, to speak in a world where our voices have been extinguished. These writing may shock or horrify you, but that is not my intention. It is my greatest hope that the pages in this jar stir your deepest well of human compassion. I hope they prompt you to do something, to tell somone. Only then can we ensure that this kind of evil is never allowed to repeat itself. — Ruta Sepetys

Our strength consists in our speed and in our brutality. Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to slaughter - with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in him solely the founder of a state. It's a matter of indifference to me what a weak western European civilization will say about me. I have issued the command - and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad - that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formation in readiness - for the present only in the East - with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks to-day of the annihilation of the Armenians? — Adolf Hitler

It was only when I started to reconnect with my inner child four years into recovery (I was over four years clean and sober off drugs and alcohol) and started to attend a love addiction support group that I was able to trust again and have faith that there are just as many honest and trustworthy women as there are women who are not interested in monogamy.
However, it was after ten years of continuous recovery that I started to really dig deep into my childhood grief work and was finally able to reclaim my inner child. I started to take risks again. On a practical level, you can't get very far in this world if you resent and distrust the opposite sex and, sadly, many men and women suffer in this area. Rather than celebrating the opposite sex, they fear them. Empathy and self-compassion has helped me in this area too. — Christopher Dines

She will look at you as women look at men, and she will judge you as a woman judge men ... not on the strength of their arguments, and not in their cleverness or prowess in battle, but rather on the force of their character, the intensity of their passion, their strength of soul, their compassion, and ... ah, this above all ... their conversation. — Orson Scott Card

She had wild eyes, slightly insane. She also carried an overload of compassion that was real enough and which obviously cost her something. — Charles Bukowski

Idea at play here is that of "morality." When young women are taught about morality, there's not often talk of compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity. There is, however, a lot of talk about hymens — Jessica Valenti

Dr. Martin Luther King put it like this: "We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside . . . but one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved."23 — Shane Claiborne

Prioritise self-care & incorporate a MINIMUM of 60 mins 'ME TIME' into your daily routine.
YES THERE ARE enough hours in the day.
NO EXCUSES. — Miya Yamanouchi

We men should be ashamed of ourselves. I think 85 percent of men are dangerous to women. We need to change to a values system nested in compassion and generosity, and women have carried that torch throughout history. — Patch Adams

SHOW THE WORLD YOUR STRONG COMPASSION!
GIVE YOUR VOICE TO VOICELESS KOBANE KIDS! — Widad Akreyi

My dis-interest in what people speak of as "women's problems," "women's literature." Have women a special sensibility? No. There are individuals uniquely talented & uniquely equipped to interpret the complex symbolism of the world but they are certainly not determined by gender. The very idea is astonishing. [ ... ] Energy, talent, vision, insight, compassion, the ability to stay with a single work for long periods of time, the ability to be faithful (to both one's writing and one's beloved)
these have nothing to do with gender. [ ... ] The sensibility of a Virginia Woolf, for instance. It's her own, it's uniquely hers. Not because she is a "female" but because she is, or was, Virginia Woolf. Not more sensitive than Henry James or Proust or James Joyce, consequently not more "feminine" in the narrow & misleading sense people use that term today ... But then I suppose critics must have something to write about. [ ... ] — Joyce Carol Oates

we have the incredible fortune of living alongside wise men and women from many traditions who give us these kinds of messages over and over again: "Look at your mind. Be curious. Welcome groundlessness. Lighten up and relax. Offer chaos a cup of tea. Let go of 'us and them.' Don't turn away. Everything you do and think affects everyone else on the planet. Let the pain of the world touch you and cause your compassion to blossom. And never give up on yourself." I — Pema Chodron

So never be afraid, never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion; against injustice, lying and greed. If you, not just you in this room tonight, but in all the other thousands of rooms like this one today and tomorrow and next week will do this, not as a class or classes, but as individuals, men and women, you will change the earth. — William Faulkner

A hero is also someone who, in their day to day interactions with the world, despite all the pain, uncertainty and doubt that can plague us, is resiliently and unashamedly themselves. If you can wake up every day and be emotionally open and honest regardless of what you get back from the world then you can be the hero of your own story. Each and every person who can say that despite life's various buffetings that they are proud to be the person they are is a hero. Now I do have to mention the real heroes of The Trevor Project, the men and women volunteers, all of whom stand up day after day answering the calls of desperate teens whose circumstances have pushed them to the edge of the abyss. To take that call, and say yes, I will be the one who saves this life takes such courage and compassion. Hemingway's definition of 'grace under pressure' seems fitting as the job they do is every bit as important, and every bit as delicate as a soldier defusing a bomb. — Daniel Radcliffe

The Pope, if nothing else, should be a Catholic. If he were to announce that women would make great priests, except it's a pity that more of them aren't gay, because of the greater compassion they could bring to the task, it might endear him to liberal Catholic commentators , but it would make him something other than a Catholic, in the true sense. — Declan Lynch

What you are witnessing is the face of war a great ruler seldom sees, my lady," Master Lo Feng said to her. Her veiled face turned his way, listening. "No matter how righteous the cause, no matter who wins, the commonfolk suffer. Without plenty, the wealthy lack compassion for the poor, hoarding without sharing. Without law, the strong bully the weak, stealing by force. People will go hungry. Some will starve. Men and women will be forced to choose between feeding their parents and their children. — Jacqueline Carey

We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind. To do so effectively, the world needs a global ethic with values which give meaning to life experiences and, more than religious institutions and dogmas, sustain the non-material dimension of humanity. Mankind's universal values of love, compassion, solidarity, caring and tolerance should form the basis for this global ethic which should permeate culture, politics, trade, religion and philosophy. It should also permeate the extended family of the United Nations. — Wangari Maathai

The wisdom and compassion a woman can intuitively experience in childbirth can make her a source of healing and understanding for other women. — Stephen Gaskin

Infusing the cultural war with love, respect and empathy is the responsibility of every one who cares about the health and wellbeing of women, our families and communities, and our democracy. — Aspen Baker

Denied access to information about important arenas of human life, history, and art, women like Augusta Welland demonstrate well into adulthood a lack of moral insight and sympathetic compassion. — Edith Wharton

The hearts of Afro-American women are too warm and too large for race hatred. Long suffering has so chastened them that they are developing a special sense of sympathy for all who suffer and fail of justice. — Fannie Barrier Williams

Even though men and women are different in our thinking, we all share the need and desire for compassion, compliments, and companionship. — Germany Kent

The rationale seems to be that we keep people as victims by validating them, empathizing with them, and fighting alongside them for equality and the dignity they deserve. I don't think people are kept down by that. I believe what keeps people down is the constant dismissal of their pain, the degradation, the humiliation, the fear of injustice, and the continuous crushing of their will, their faith, and their hope. This type of oppression kills the self-esteem people need to empower themselves, and it's flat-out terrorism. — Kyrian Lyndon

The passage of time hasn't changed the fact that abortion is a serious, lethal violation of fundamental human rights, and that women and children deserve better, and that the demands of justice, generosity, and compassion require that the right to life be guaranteed to everyone. — Chris Smith

Mary, mother of Jesus, pays for her maternity by giving up her body, almost entirely: she foregoes both (hetero) sexual pleasure (Christ's birth is a virgin and "spiritual" birth) and physical prowess. She has no direct worldly power but, like her crucified son, is easily identified with by many people, especially women, as a powerless figure. Mary symbolizes power achieved through receptivity, compassion, and a uterus. (There's nothing intrinsically wrong with a consciously willed "receptivity" to the universe; on the contrary, it is highly desirable, and should certainly include "receptivity" to many things other than holy sperm and suffering.) — Phyllis Chesler

If women understand by emancipation the adoption of the masculine role then we are lost indeed. If women can supply no counterbalance to the blindness of male drive the aggressive society will run to its lunatic extremes at ever-escalating speed. Who will safeguard the despised animal faculties of compassion, empathy, innocence and sensuality? — Germaine Greer

If there is anything I have learned about men and women, it is that there is a deeper spirit of altruism than is ever evident. Just as the rivers we see are minor compared to the underground streams, so, too, the idealism that is visible is minor compared to what people carry in their hearts unreleased or scarcely released. — Albert Schweitzer

I'm sure everyone feels sorry for the individual who has fallen by the wayside or who can't keep up in our competitive society, but my own compassion goes beyond that to those millions of unsung men and women, who get up every morning, send the kids to school, go to work, try to keep up the payments on their house, pay exorbitant taxes to make possible compassion for the less fortunate, and as a result have to sacrifice many of their own desires and dreams and hopes. Government owes them something better than always finding a new way to make them share the fruit of their toils with others. — Ronald Reagan

If it is not tempered by compassion, and empathy, reason can lead men and women into a moral void. (95) — Karen Armstrong

Nature has given women two painful but heavenly gifts, which distinguish them, and often raise them above human nature,
compassion and enthusiasm. By compassion, they devote themselves; by enthusiasm they exalt themselves. — Alphonse De Lamartine

My entire mission in life is to help women take over the world. Not by force (the route so many men have taken since the beginning of time), but with compassion, perseverance, and love. — Kevyn Aucoin

Your body is not who you are. I don't think women should label themselves based on the way they look. What about defining yourself by a different kind of measurement? What about your heart, your soul, your compassion, your generosity, your strength and your power? There are so many other things to focus on besides your waistline. — Mariska Hargitay

Death is like giving birth. Birth can be painful. Sometimes women die from giving birth. However, when the baby is born, all that pain (that was endured) vanishes in an instant. Love for that tiny baby makes one forget the pain, the fear. And as I've said before, love between mother and child is the highest experience, the closest to divine love.
You might wonder about the parallel I'm making between birth and death. But I say to you, the fear and pain accompanying an awful death is over quickly. Beyond that portal one is suddenly in the light, in oneness and bliss ... Just as a woman heals rapidly after childbirth and then is able to fall in love with her baby, those who pass over also are able to fall in love with a new life."-Kuan Yin (From "Oracle of Compassion: the Living Word of Kuan Yin — Hope Bradford

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 1975, 31 percent of college teachers were female; by 2009, the number had grown to 49.2 percent.7 There are more women teaching in college than ever, and it is quite possible that their presence, coupled with our discovery of the postmodern narrative, has had a feminizing effect on the collective unconscious of faculty thought. Strong winds of compassion blow across campus quads. Women are more empathetic than men, more giving, simply more bothered by anyone's underdog status. Many of the female adjuncts I have spoken to seem blessed and cursed by feelings of maternity toward the students. Women think about their actions, and the consequences of their actions, in a deeper way than do men. — Professor X.

God does not want a church filled with white-robed saints. He does not want a church filled with theological authorities or cultured clergyman. He wants a church filled with ordinary men and women who exemplify the extraordinary integrity, temperament, wholeness, compassion, individuality, boldness, righteousness, earnestness, love, forgiveness, selflessness, and faithfulness of Jesus Christ! — Ray Stedman

That's how powerful you are, girl ... You pretty, but pretty alone is not what people see. You the kinda pretty, the kinda beauty, that's like a mirror. Men and women see themselves in you, only now they so beautiful that they can't bear to see you go. — Walter Mosley

Fame is fun, money is useful, celebrity can be exciting, but finally life is about optimal well-being and how we achieve that in dominator culture, in a greedy culture, in a culture that uses so much of the world's resources. How do men and women, boys and girls, live lives of compassion, justice and love? And I think that's the visionary challenge for feminism and all other progressive movements for social change. — Bell Hooks

But then I realized, they didn't mean their own mothers. Not those weak women, those victims. Drug addicts, shopaholics, cookie bakers. They didn't mean the women who let them down, who failed to help them into womanhood. They didn't mean the mothers washing dishes wishing they'd never married, the ones in the ER, saying they fell down the stairs, not the ones in prison saying loneliness is the human condition.
They wanted the real mother, the blood mother, the great womb, mother of a fierce compassion, a woman large enough to hold all the pain, to carry it away. What we needed was someone who bled, someone deep and rich as a field, a wide hipped mother, auwesome, immense, women like huge soft couches, mothers coursing with blood, mothers big enough, wide enough, for us to hide in, to sink down to the bottom of, mothers who would breathe for us when we could not breathe anymore, mothers who would fight for us, who would kill for us, and die for us. — Janet Fitch

When Stephen talked about stalking chamois his whole expression changed. The features became more aquiline, the nose sharpened, the chin narrowed, and his eyes-steel blue - somehow took on the cold brilliance of a northern sky. I am being very frank about my husband. He attracted me at those times, and he repelled me too. This man, I told myself when I first met him, is a perfectionist. And he has no compassion. Gratified like all women who find themselves sought after and desired - a mutual love for Sibelius had been our common ground at our first encounter - after a few weeks in his company I shut my eyes to further judgment, because being with him gave me pleasure. It flattered my self-esteem. The perfectionist, admired by other women, now sought me. Marriage was in every sense a coup. It was only afterwards that I knew myself deceived. ("The Chamois") — Daphne Du Maurier

Come on, Ted. I'm not exactly the type to be a rich man's bimbo."
"That's true." A world of compassion softened his voice. "Bimbos are generally good-hearted women who are pleasant to be around."
"Spoken from experience, I'm sure. By the way, you may be God Almighty on the golf course, but you're a lousy dancer. Let me lead. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I've always found the idea of 'saving' your virginity intriguing: it's not as if we're packing our Saran-wrapped hymens away in the freezer, after all, or pasting them in scrapbooks. But packed-away virginities aside, the interesting - and dangerous - idea at play here is that of 'morality. When young women are taught about morality, there's not often talk of compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity. There is, however, a lot of talk about hymens (though the preferred words are undoubtedly more refined - think 'virginity' and 'chastity'): if we have them, when we'll lose them, and under what circumstances we'll be rid of them. — Jessica Valenti

The Avatar is a child to the children, a boy to the boys, a man among men, a woman among women, so that the Avatar?s message might reach each heart and receive enthusiastic response as Ananda. It is the compassion of the Avatar that prompts His every action. — Sathya Sai Baba

The central attitudes driving Rambo are:
Strength and aggressiveness are good; compassion and conflict resolution are bad.
Anything that could be even remotely associated with homosexuality, including walking away from possible violence or showing any fear or grief, has to be avoided at any cost.
Femaleness and femininity (which he associates with homosexuality) are inferior. Women are here to serve men and be protected by them.
Men should never hit women, because it is unmanly to do so. However, exceptions to this rule can be made for my own partner if her behavior is bad enough. Men need to keep their women in line.
You are a thing that belongs to me, akin to a trophy. — Lundy Bancroft

True beauty is a warm heart, a kind soul, and an attentive ear. — Ken Poirot

But those who are incapable of
pitying animals are, as a matter of fact, incapable of pitying men.
A physician who would cut a living rabbit in pieces
laying bare
the nerves, denuding them with knives, pulling them out with
forceps
would not hesitate to try experiments with men and women
for the gratification of his curiosity. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Maybe someday shedding tears in the workplace will no longer be viewed as embarrassing or weak, but as a simple display of authentic emotion. And maybe the compassion and sensitivity that have historically held some women back will make them more natural leaders in the future. In the meantime, we can all hasten this change by committing ourselves to both seek - and speak - our truth. — Sheryl Sandberg

Now listen to me. I will not walk on one-way streets any longer. Your wound is my wound, (though you don't know that mine is yours), and I do what I can, but the well will run dry. You will use us up. There are women whose first stretching across borders was into your lives. When they discover how you make use of their compassion, they will turn away heartsick, stricken, withering in the freshness of their hope. There are women who were leaders, who worked night and day, defeated not by foreign policy, but by the sexual politics of solidarity, bitter now, unable to work anywhere near you. How dare you speak of the New Woman! We are your richest resource besides your endurance, and you use us like rags to wrap around your pain. — Aurora Levins Morales

When the positive revolution takes hold it will no longer be enough for politicians to gain points through attack or being negative. Politicians will be expected to be constructive. — Edward De Bono

Most women got this thing called compassion. It doesn't make them foolish, just more forgiving. More capable of trying and hoping things worked out. — Eric Jerome Dickey

Study the lives of our great women, who were models of patience, fortitude, compassion and sacrifice ... — Sathya Sai Baba

It is strange how little sharpsightedness women possess; they only notice whether they please, then whether they arouse pity, and finally, whether you look for compassion from them. That is all; come to think of it, it may even be enough, generally speaking. — Franz Kafka

Women are more powerful than they think. A mother's warmth is the essence of motivation. If we could liquefy the encouragement, care and compassion we deliver to our children it would surely fill an expanse greater than the Pacific — Louise Burfitt-Dons

It was happening. At least in that little section of the salon, women were connecting and doing what women knew how to do, show compassion, nurturing - helping someone fit in. — Terri Gillespie

Women are powerful, and I see them stifle this every. single. day. Stop looking to be saved and hiding your magic. Stop tossing aside your voice and valid emotions. Stop wasting your time with fake friends and chasing men like they're cures.
Material things, better jobs, and other people- they won't fill your gap. Only you can do that. Life is short. Rise up and step back into your awesome, innate power. You are compassion and creative force and divine life itself. You are a Goddess. — Victoria Erickson

I have my own peculiar yardstick for measuring a man: Does he have the courage to cry in a moment of grief? Does he have the compassion not to hunt an animal? In his relationship with a woman, is he gentle? Real manliness is nurtured in kindness and gentleness, which I associate with intelligence, comprehension, tolerance, justice, education, and high morality. If only men realized how easy it is to open a woman's heart with kindness, and how many women close their hearts to the assaults of the Don Juans. — Sophia Loren

We are women. We believe in love and goodness and the kindness of others above all things. We are hard-wired to blame ourselves for things that other people do, even the bad, evil ones. That's why we're so good at compassion. It's also why we're our own worst enemies sometimes. — Elle Casey

The essence of motherhood is not restricted to women who have given birth; it is a principle inherent in both women and men. It is an attitude of the mind. It is love - and that love is the very breath of life. No one would say, 'I will breathe only when I am with my family and friends; I won't breathe in front of my enemies.' Similarly, for those in whom motherhood has awakened, love and compassion for everyone are as much part of their being as breathing. — Mata Amritanandamayi

A modern world, with so many choices for women, yet still very much a man's world, with little

place for compassion or community or flowery skirts. No, it was a world of business suits and

lawsuits, of committees and careful conversations. — Debotri Dhar

Divorce is challenging. When your kids go through things, it's tough. But it's no different for any other woman. And I have great compassion for single moms. It's lousy out there for them. I had the ability to work. I have always been the provider anyway, but there are a lot of women who can't support themselves. — Marie Osmond

The time has come for women and men to band together to jointly create gender harmony. We must gather in mixed group to plumb new depths of relational awareness, courageous truth-telling, compassionate listening, empathic sensitivity, and mutual healing. — William Keepin