Josiah Gilbert Holland Quotes

The sons of Adam are limbs of each other, Having been created of one essence. When the calamity of time affects one limb, the other limbs cannot remain at rest. If you have no sympathy for the troubles of others, You are unworthy to be called by the name of a human.

The children of Adam, created of the self-same clay, are members of one body. When one member suffers, all members suffer, likewise. O Thou, who art indifferent to the suffering of the fellow, thou art unworthy to be called a man. بنى آدم اعضای يك پیکرند که در آفرينش ز یک گوهرند چو عضوى به درد آورد روزگار دگر عضوها را نماند قرار تو کز محنت دیگران بی غمی نشاید که نامت نهند آدمی

My friends, let us try to follow the Saviour's steps; let us remember all day long what it is to be men; that it is to have every one whom we meet for our brother in the sight of God; that it is this, never to meet anyone, however bad he may be, for whom we cannot say: "Christ died for that man, and Christ cares for him still. He is precious in God's eyes, and he shall be precious in mine also".

God's Heart is especially tender toward the downtrodden and the defeated. He knows your name and He has seen every tear you have shed.

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

What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met.

Somehow I had come to believe that because a person is in need, they are candidates for sympathy, not just charity. It was not that I wanted to buy her groceries, the government was already doing that. I wanted to buy her dignity. And yet, by judging her, I was the one taking her dignity away.

There is no greater intelligence than kindness and empathy.

The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasure of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.

Empathy is the greatest virtue. From it, all virtues flow. Without it, all virtues are an act.

The idea that we are our brother's keeper and our sister's keeper. That we should treat others as we would want to be treated. And that we care for the sick... feed the hungry... and welcome the stranger... no matter where they come from, or how they practice their faith.

I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding.

Sir,' I interrupted him, 'you are inexorable for that unfortunate lady; you speak of her with hate --- with vindictive antipathy. It is cruel --- she cannot help being mad.

...When you can look into the face of human beings and you have enough light to recognize them as your brothers and sisters. Up until then it is night and darkness is still with us. Let us pray for the light. It is the peace the world cannot give.

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be

Write me as one who loves his fellow men.

To consider mankind other than brethren...plainly supposes a darkness of understanding.

Compassion is nothing one feels with the intellect alone. Compassion is particular; it is never general.

To be able to laugh and to be merciful are the only things that make man better than the beast

The more we see, the more we understand. The more we understand, the easier it is for us to have compassion and love. Understanding is the source of love. Understanding is love itself. Understanding is another name for love; love is another name for understanding.

The poor are our brothers and sisters ... people in the world who need love, who need care, who have to be wanted.

The well taught philosophic mind To all compassion gives; Casts round the world an equal eye, And feels for all that lives.

You men have none of you any hearts.' 'If we have not hearts, we have eyes; and they give us torment enough.

Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.