To expect too much compassion from yourself might be a little destructive of your own existence. Even so, at least make a try, and this goes not only for individuals but also for life itself. It's so easy. It's a fashionable idiocy of youth to say the world has not come up to your expectations. "What? I was coming, and this is all they could prepare for me?" Throw it out. Have compassion for the world and those in it.

—Joseph Campbell

existence compassion

About Joseph Campbell

Portrait of Joseph Campbell

Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American writer. He was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human condition. Campbell's best-known work is his book The Hero with...

More quotations from Joseph Campbell

Love is a friendship set to music.

—Joseph Campbell

If we think of ourselves as coming out of the earth, rather than having been thrown in here from somewhere else, we see that we are the earth; we are the consciousness of the earth. These are the eyes of the earth. And this is the voice of the earth.

—Joseph Campbell

perspective eyes earth consciousness

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

—Joseph Campbell

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning… a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be.

—Joseph Campbell

Marriage is not a love affair. A love affair has to do with immediate personal satisfaction. Marriage is an ordeal; it means yielding, time and again. That's why it's a sacrament: you give up your personal simplicity to participate. And you are not giving to the other person; you are giving to the relationship. Because you are not giving to the other person, it is not impoverishing—it is life-building, life-fostering, enriching.

—Joseph Campbell

More quotations tagged with “compassion”

It all comes down to this: when you recognise your loneliness in another person, when you see desperation so familiar to yours written across someone else, you can't just let them leave.

—Chloe Rattray in Sacré Noir

love loneliness compassion familiarity

Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people, because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy.

—Chögyam Trungpa in Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

others compassion energy

Compassion is the basis of all morality.

—Arthur Schopenhauer

kindness morality compassion

In 1941 Sergeant James Allen Ward was awarded the Victoria Cross for climbing out onto the wing of his Wellington bomber at thirteen thousand feet to extinguish a fire in the starboard engine. Secured only by a rope around his waist, he smothered the fire and returned along the wing to the aircraft's cabin. Winston Churchill, an admirer of swashbuckling exploits, summoned the shy New Zealander to 10 Downing Street. Struck dumb with awe in Churchill's presence, Ward was unable to answer the prime minister's questions. Churchill surveyed the unhappy hero with some compassion. "You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence," he said.
"Yes, sir," managed Ward.
"Then you can imagine how humble and awkward I feel in yours," said Churchill.

—The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes

war heroism humility compassion fire awe awkwardness

You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself. I don't say this as a condemnation—I need regular reminders to stop feeling sorry for myself too. I'm going to address you bluntly, but it's a directness that rises from my compassion for you, not my judgement of you. Nobody's going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you're rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things have befallen you. Self-pity is a dead-end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It's up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.

—Cheryl Strayed in Tiny Beautiful Things

life judgement money compassion self-pity

History

24 Jun 2016 Added