Dominique Pire Quotes

It seemed to me a matter of course that we should all take our share of the burden of pain which lies upon the world.

Any atrocity that's committed against one person affects us all, and we are becoming more of one society, of a global society, so something that happens in the Middle East or something that happens in Africa, something that happens in Asia, affects all of us.

I believe we are all connected to other people. I am connected to people who are suffering. We all are.

We all need to realize that there are people out there who may be suffering and we all need to try to do our part to relieve that suffering when we can.

How can I act in an impersonal manner? When a man dies in the street for want of food, how can I ignore him? When I find a starving or naked man in the street, I cannot walk past him. I think no human being can do that.

When a good man is hurt, all who would be called good must suffer with him.

All human suffering concerns each human being.

So long as there are poor, - I am poor, - So long as there are prisons, - I am a prisoner, - So long as there are sick, - I am weak, - So long as there is ignorance, - I must learn the truth, - So long as there is hate, - I must love, - So long as there is hunger, - I am famished. - Such is the identification Our Divine Lord would have us make with all whom He made in love and for love.

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see. In the face of injustice, one may not look the other way. When someone suffers, and it is not you, that person comes first. One's very suffering gives one priority. . . . To watch over one who grieves is a more urgent duty than to think of God.

There is in Aristotle an almost complete absence of what may be called benevolence or philanthropy. The sufferings of mankind . . . there is no evidence that they cause him unhappiness except when the sufferers happen to be his friends.

One day I was sitting in my own pain, and suddenly all the pain and troubles of the world came to me. I received all the pain of the world, all through my body.

I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.

Pure libertarianism believes that people will be generous and help each other. Well, they won't. I wish it were so, and I live that way. I help panhandlers, but other people are, 'Oh look at that - why doesn't he get a job?' While I believe in all that freedom, I also believe that no one should suffer needlessly.

I believe the world is one big family, and we need to help each other.

One is guilty of all abjection that one does not help to relieve.

How can you regret helping a suffering patient?

Are we truly being our sisters' keepers? Initially, that dog-eat-dog mentality within us may bark and say that we aren't responsible for other people, but if that was truly the case, then why are we even here? We have so much to offer and give to this world.

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.

We all, as engineers, doctors, have a big responsibility to bring smiles on the faces of suffering humanity.

There's something about compassion that causes society to say, 'We're going to take this person seriously.' Take Mother Teresa. She was confrontational on abortion, but she wasn't rejected by society.

Because a human being is endowed with empathy, he violates the natural order if he does not reach out to those who need care. Responding to this empathy, one is in harmony with the order of things, with dharma; otherwise, one is not.

They charge me with fanaticism. If to be feelingly alive to the suffering of my fellow creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.

The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own.

Philanthropic work reminds you of everyone's common humanity, and that's really the common denominator for everyone.