Jodi Picoult Quotes

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?

Kindness consents very readily to the removal of its object – we have all met people whose kindness to animals is constantly leading them to kill animals lest they should suffer. Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering.

Compassion is the wish for another being to be free from suffering; love is wanting them to have happiness.

My father was a clergyman and always said: 'Hate the sin but love the sinner.'

It is right to hate sin, but not to hate the sinner.

All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice.

All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away

What would Jesus have done in precisely similar situations?

Contemporary audiences are interested in watching characters navigate ethical challenges and moral dilemmas.

Could you look an animal in the eyes and say to it, 'My appetite is more important than your suffering'?

We don't let animals suffer, so why humans?

I think, don't you, that a girl with any delicacy of feeling couldn't bring herself to marry a man indirectly responsible for her father's death. No matter how much she was in love with him.

It may be an infinitely less evil to murder a man than to refuse to forgive him. The former may be the act of a moment of passion: the latter is the heart’s choice.

One has been a poor spectator of life if one has not witnessed the hand - that kills from mercy.

Humanity is to be met with in a den of robbers.

Compassion allows us to bear witness to suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear; it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal.

The root of the matter is a very simple and old fashioned thing... love or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide for action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.

if I hate the sins, I love the sinner, and would do much for his salvation

If I could, Sister James, I would certainly choose to live in innocence. But innocence can only be wisdom in a world without evil. Situations arise and we are confronted with wrongdoing and the need to act.

in proportion as my own discomfort has increased, my conviction of necessity to search into the wants of the friendless and afflicted has deepened. If I am cold, they too are cold; if I am weary, they are distressed; if I am alone, they are abandoned.

Who would not rather be the sufferer than the defrauder?

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it.

you could have forgiven my committing a sin if you hadn't feared that I had a committed a pleasure as well.

Love, and do what you will. If you keep silence, do it out of love. If you cry out, do it out of love. If you refrain from punishing, do it out of love.

The problem is whether we are determined to go in the direction of compassion or not. If we are, then can we reduce the suffering to a minimum? If I lose my direction, I have to look for the North Star, and I go to the north. That does not mean I expect to arrive at the North Star. I just want to go in that direction.