Stephen Vizinczey Quotes

You can be the greatest guy in the world but if you ain't got no heart, you ain't gonna survive.

Suffering! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues.

The great majority of people are calm, resourceful, altruistic or even beyond altruistic, as they risk themselves for others. We improvise the conditions of survival beautifully.

We need the compassion and the courage to change the conditions that support our suffering. Those conditions are things like ignorance, bitterness, negligence, clinging, and holding on.

The countries with the greatest problems have the kindest people.

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

I do this because it pleases me, and there is nothing I would not do so as human effort goes, to advance any movement designed to reach and rescue perishing humanity. I have a heart for others and that is why I am in this work. When I see suffering about me, I myself suffer, and so when I put forth my efforts to relieve others, I am simply working for myself. I do not consider that I have made any sacrifice whatever; no man does unless he violates his conscience

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.

To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men!

To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, the ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control that can lead you to be shattered.

If you care about people, then you're willing to act not just with compassion, but you're also willing to act with courage.

I believe that you have to live a life that involves both courage and compassion.

Australia is a nation of compassion. Courage and compassion. And the third of these great values: resilience.

I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.

Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.

It's kind of bittersweet. The human spirit is not measured by the size of the act, but by the size of the heart.

I didn't want readers to think I was asking to be praised for taking care of my wife while she was ill. Lots of people are heroic, more heroic than I was, when faced with the suffering of someone they love.

I'm fascinated how often and with what whole-heartedness people will risk their lives to perform acts of courage, sacrifice, and compassion for total strangers.

Virtues, like viruses, have their seasons of contagion. When catastrophe strikes, generosity spikes like a fever. Courage spreads in the face of tyranny.

A love for humanity came over me, and watered and fertilised the fields of my inner world which had been lying fallow, and this love of humanity vented itself in a vast compassion.

It's often difficult for us to act compassionately, but sacred art eases the difficulty by ennobling us.

It is neither the statesman nor the friend who is asking your help and assistance, but simply the man.

Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.

Any beast can cry over the misfortunes of its own child. It takes a mensch to weep for others' children.

Helping someone is what life is all about.