Ram Dass Quotes

When your fear touches someone’s pain, it becomes pity, when your love touches someone’s pain, it become compassion.

Pity is the most pleasant feeling in those who have not much pride and have no prospect of great conquests; for them the easy prey - and that is what all who suffer are - is enchanting.

Years ago I used to commiserate with all people who suffered. Now I commiserate only with those who suffer in ignorance, who do not understand the purpose and ultimate utility of pain

I think I love most people best when they are in adversity; for pity is one of my prevailing passions.

They tell us that "Pity is akin to Love;" if so, Pity must be a poor relation.

A woman's pity often opens the door to love.

Sometimes, in difficult circumstances, one can confuse compassion with love.

I seem to be the only person in the world who doesn't mind being pitied. If you love me, pity me. The human state is pitiable: born to die, capable of so much, accomplishing so little; killing instead of creating, destroying instead of building, hating instead of loving. Pitiful, pitiful.

The world is full of love and pity, I say. Had there been less suffering, there would have been less kindness.

Sympathy is a sweet thing.

We must never minimize the suffering of another. Scripture's mandate to us is, "Weep with them that weep." (Romans 12:15, KJV)

The recognition of pain and fear in others give rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.

I feel pity for him, and that is a poor sign of love.

There is desire in those who love to hear about their loved ones' pains.

I know the compassion of others is a relief at first. I don't despise it. But it can't quench pain, it slips through your soul as through a sieve. And when our suffering has been dragged from one pity to another, as from one mouth to another, we can no longer respect or love it.

Compassion arises naturally as the quivering of the heart in the face of pain, ours and another's. True compassion is not limited by the separateness of pity, nor by the fear of being overwhelmed. When we come to rest in the great heart of compassion, we discover a capacity to bear witness to, suffer with, and hold dear with our own vulnerable heart the sorrows and beauties of the world.

Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love.

There are two kinds of pity. One, the weak and sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart's impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another's unhappiness, that pity which is not compassion, but only an instinctive desire to fortify one's own soul agains the sufferings of another; and the other, the only one at counts, the unsentimental but creative kind, which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and even beyond.

Pity melts the mind to love.

That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society.

I spent three and a half years writing the novel 'Chang & Eng,' about the conjoined brothers for whom the term 'Siamese twins' was contrived, and when I think of these afflicted people, my only emotion is one of profound sympathy.

Ever since I was a child, I would start crying seeing anyone in pain.

A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection.

To be loved at first sight, a man should have at the same time something to respect and something to pity in his face.