Margaret Atwood Quotes

I should have been kinder when I was younger.

I now see that I never needed to be so mean or cruel.

Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.

Compassion is an act of tolerance where kindness and forgiveness reign. When we make the compassionate choice, we enhance the dignity of each individual, which is the very essence of loving them.

Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek.

Are you proud of yourself tonight that you have insulted a total stranger whose circumstances you know nothing about?

True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one's own the suffering and joys of others.

You get kinder when you get into my age range. You think back to how really unkind you were, and how cynical you were and how you tossed things away and you tossed people away, and you didn't care because you were climbing some mountain that you thought you needed to be on top of.

The ability to understand the cause of your own suffering gives you the ability to understand ours.

If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion and peace.

Most women got this thing called compassion. It doesn't make them foolish, just more forgiving. More capable of trying and hoping things worked out.

I think was overly empathetic for a while in my life.

One of the greatest indicators of our own spiritual maturity is revealed in how we respond to the weaknesses, the inexperience, and the potentially offensive actions of others.

My heart gets very tender when it comes to playing someone who has wronged someone else. I almost feel like it's easier for me to play having been wronged than it is to actually feel like you had an active part in hurting someone.

Mostly I am sorry for the way I thought of other people. Like a good general, I had treated everyone who wasn't with me as against me.

I think one ought always to be indulgent towards other people, as I always think, if we had not been well brought up and well taken care of, we might also have gone astray. That is always my feeling. Yet it is always right to show that one does not like to see what is obviously wrong; but it is very dangerous to be too severe, and I am certain that as a rule such people always greatly regret that in their youth they have not been as careful as they ought to have been.

I'm not generally a sensitive person, but I tend to be more sensitive toward others and what they're going through. I don't know if that's the healthiest thing, but it's the truth.

It always surprises me when people say, 'I don't regret one thing about my life. I wouldn't change anything because it's all led me to where I am today.' I would want to change certain things that have caused others pain.

Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

If I could reach down in my heart, I would say I'm sorry for every unkind word and thought I ever had.

I've learned a lot. Being more compassionate.

Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings; and they are the truest philosophers who can forget themselves.

They say it's like true love, good help. you only get one in a lifetime.....there is so much you don't know about a person. i wonder if i could've made her days a little bit easier, if I'd tried. if i'd treated her a little nicer.

Compassion is our most important practice. Understanding brings compassion. Understanding the suffering that living beings undergo helps liberate the energy of compassion. And with that energy you know what to do.

Unless and until you have developed a heart inundated with compassion, do not sit on the seat of judgement.