Darin Strauss Quotes

Can I see another's woe, And not be in sorrow too? Can I see another's grief, And not seek for kind relief? Can I see a falling tear, And not feel my sorrow's share? Can a father see his child Weep, nor be with sorrow filled? Can a mother sit and hear An infant groan, an infant fear? No, no! never can it be! Never, never can it be!

He watched and wept and prayed and felt for all

When he is pierced, I bleed.

Pity is the most pleasant feeling in those who have not much pride and have no prospect of great conquests; for them the easy prey - and that is what all who suffer are - is enchanting.

When your fear touches someone’s pain, it becomes pity, when your love touches someone’s pain, it become compassion.

Compassion is a mixed passion, composed of love and sorrow.

One can show no greater respect than to weep for a stranger.

It is only possible through the fact that sympathy for the general life and suffering of mankind is very weakly developed in the individual.

Compassion and pity are very different. Whereas compassion reflects the yearning of the heart to merge and take on some of the suffering, pity is a controlled set of thoughts designed to assure separateness. Compassion is the spontaneous response of love; pity, the involuntary reflex of fear.

I think I love most people best when they are in adversity; for pity is one of my prevailing passions.

Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatesoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer.

When he is wounded, I bleed. {page 262 of John Adams}

Pity only on fresh objects stays, but with the tedious sight of woes decays.

Compassion arises naturally as the quivering of the heart in the face of pain, ours and another's. True compassion is not limited by the separateness of pity, nor by the fear of being overwhelmed. When we come to rest in the great heart of compassion, we discover a capacity to bear witness to, suffer with, and hold dear with our own vulnerable heart the sorrows and beauties of the world.

I made your sorrow mine also, that you might have help in bearing it.

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?

The anguish I always feel when she's in pain wells up in my chest and threatens to register on my face.

I cannot tell how much my heart suffered for my people while at Leavenworth.

To deaden yourself against any hurt is to deaden yourself also against the hurt of others.

He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid.

For a tear is quickly dried, especially when shed for the misfortunes of others.

He gave to misery (all he had) a tear.

There's no greater way to gain an audience's sympathy than by being unfortunate.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.