Gary Snyder Quotes

I want a world without war, a world without insanity. I want to see people do well. I don't even think it's as much as what I want for myself. It's more what I want for the people around me. That's what I want.

Luckily the whole world is not like me, or else, there would be no world.

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.

I have empathy; I am humane. I understand human misery.

Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world.

I don't want to torture anything. It's about trying to live a life where I'm not contributing to the cruelty in the world... While I am on this planet, I want everyone I meet to know that I am grateful they are here.

I don't think I should accept other people's suffering because I suffered. Just the opposite, because I suffered I don't want others to suffer.

I find it difficult to feel responsible for the suffering of others. That's why I find war so hard to bear. It's the same with animals: I feel the less harm I do, the lighter my heart. I love a light heart. And when I know I'm causing suffering, I feel the heaviness of it. It's a physical pain. So it's self-interest that I don't want to cause harm.

Compassion is aptly summed up in the Golden Rule, which asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else. Compassion can be defined, therefore, as an attitude of principled, consistent altruism.

I'm trying to show by my actions that you can make a far better world if you just care enough. That's all you have to do. It's no big deal. One act of kindness a day can do it.

Try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself, and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence

If you want a kinder world, then behave with kindness; if you want a peaceful world, make peace within.

Lack of understanding of the true nature of happiness, it seems to me, is the principal reason why people inflict sufferings on others. They think either that the other's pain may somehow be a cause of happiness for themselves or that their own happiness is more important, regardless of what pain it may cause. But this is shortsighted. No one truly benefits from causing harm to another sentient being. . . . . In the long run causing others misery and infringing their rights to peace and happiness result in anxiety, fear, and suspicion within oneself.

No matter how we suffer, we have an obligation to others. We have to be unselfish enough to try to live in the right way, so others can get through their own lives without us fouling them up.

Err in the direction of kindness.

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

I'm trying to teach people not to be selfish. That's the thing. If you have a good thing share it. Of course we're not in a sexual relationship.

Suffering can become a means to greater love and greater generosity.

I never try boost my career of the less fortunate somebody. Because if I gotta call and get press off of it - it ain't coming from my heart.

It is easy to be lenient at other people's expense, and call it generosity of mind.

Without suffering, there'd be no compassion.

Much benevolence of the passive order may be traced to a disinclination to inflict pain upon oneself.

I really don't want to hurt others for my benefit.

Give me ... a compassionate heart, quickly moved to grieve for the woes of others and to active pity for them, even as our Lord Jesus Christ beheld our poverty and hasted to help us. Give me grace ever to alleviate the crosses and difficulties of those around me, and never to add to them; teach me to be a consoler in sorrow, to take thought for the stranger, the widow, and the orphan; let my charity show itself not in words only but in deed and truth.

I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a little looking out for the other fella, too.