“Compassion is the wish to see others free from suffering.”

“To identify with others is to see something of yourself in them and to see something of them in yourself--even if the only thing you identify with is the desire to be free from suffering.”

“in languages that derive from Latin "compassion" means: we cannot look on coolly as others suffer; or, we sympathize with those who suffer”

“Compassion is, by definition, relational. Compassion literally means 'to suffer with,' which implies a basic mutuality in the experience of suffering. The emotion of compassion springs from the recognition that the human experience is imperfect.”

“All the suffering there is in this world arises from wishing our self to be happy. All the happiness there is in this world arises from wishing others to be happy.”

“ For there to be compassion from people, they first must suffer”