George Bernard Shaw Quotes

I don't think we can be entirely happy seeing such misery around us.

One sees more and more people who are miserable and demented and you feel it would be both kind and wise to leave them a few pills.

We are truly to be pitied.

I feel like if you're in a bad situation, and then you see somebody that's even in a worse situation, you feel for that person.

Lincoln had internalized the pain of those around him-the wounded soldiers, the captured prisoners, the defeated Southerners. Little wonder that he was overwhelmed at times by a profound sadness that even his own resilient temperament could not dispel.

At a certain level of suffering or injustice no one can do anything for anyone. Pain is solitary.

One does not really feel much grief at other people's sorrows; one tries, and puts on a melancholy face, thinking oneself brutal for not caring more; but one cannot and it is better, for if one grieved too deeply at other people's tears, life would be unendurable; and every man has sufficient sorrows of his own without taking to heart his neighbour's.

Caring doesn't sometimes lead to misery. It always does.

I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't.

The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.

Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.

I think quite often a fate worse than death is life, for lots of people.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

I've come to the conclusion that it's not really possible to help others.

Some people are filled by compassion and a desire to do good, and some simply don't think anything's going to make a difference.

It is by a wise economy of nature that those who suffer without change, and whom no one can help, become uninteresting. Yet so it may happen that those who need sympathy the most often attract it the least.

Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.

To see those babies with no food for three of four days, old people sitting in the hot sun, when you see these poor people, you cannot help but being compassionate or affected.

She knows as well as anyone that pity, having played, soon tires.

Compassion Fatigue

Honestly, the pains of humanity have been draining me.

Seeing other people in pain causes me pain.

The suffering of a loved one was in many ways worse than one's one suffering because it left one feeling so very helpless.

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 more I think about the human suffering in our world and my desire to offer a healing response, the more I realize how crucial it is not to allow myself to become paralyzed by feelings of helplessness and guilt. More important than ever is to be very faithful to my vocation to do well the few things I am called to do and hold on to the joy and peace they bring me. I must resist the temptation to let the forces of darkness pull me into despair and make me one more of their many victims.