“I have watched him closely and sympathetically, for I know what the disease is myself.”

Fatherly identification with his son's struggle · Letter to Anna Harte, Glasgow, October 30, 1884

• Compassion
• Family

“That is true sympathy.”

Her concise definition of helpful rather than merely emotional sympathy · Essay, Destiny

• Compassion
• Support

“Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in another.”

Kindness as a remedy for cruelty · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Compassion
• Healing
• Kindness

“I approach each person as though he were a brother, wishing to fill his heart, turn his reason into wisdom, awaken him and give him an impulse towards life's great purposes.”

Original: Do każdego zbliżam się niby do brata, z chęcią, aby mu serce zapełnić, rozum zamienić w mądrość, wskrzesić go niby i dać mu pęd ku wielkim celom żywota. — His ideal of human influence is intimate, generous and directed towards spiritual growth. · Letter to his mother, 15 October 1845 (Polish)

• Compassion
• Growth
• Wisdom

“Much of my experience of life has cost me a great price, and I want to use it for the strengthening and comforting of other souls.”

Turning hard-won experience into consolation for others · Letter to Mrs. Condict, 7 November 1875

• Compassion
• Consolation
• Experience

“The best remains: we give each other our hands and do not take the lesson too sensitively.”

Original: Das Beste bleibt, wir geben uns die Hände und nehmen’s mit der Lehre nicht empfindlich. — Goethe values reconciliation and mutual understanding over taking every lesson or criticism personally. · The Diary (German)

• Compassion
• Friendship
• Tolerance

“I am ready to lend my cordial support to such practical measures as furnishing them with better dwellings.”

Supporting practical improvements in living conditions for the poor · Letter on social reform

• Community
• Compassion
• Justice

“In the exercise of your duty, be tender of the lower classes; and as you are strong, be merciful.”

Linking authority with compassion towards those with less power · Letter to Walter Scott, 17 March 1821

• Compassion
• Duty
• Mercy

“Here is the highest work of the imagination: to teach the child so to put himself in the place of the one he has wronged that the knowledge of that wrong shall be its own punishment.”

Connecting imagination with empathy and moral understanding · Essay, Wings and the Child, Chapter VIII: The Moral Code

• Compassion
• Imagination
• Morality

“It is one of my rules in life not to believe a man who may happen to tell me that he feels no interest in children.”

Linking concern for children with basic human sympathy · Speech, Hospital for Sick Children, London, 9 February 1858

• Childhood
• Compassion

“To be kind, means to be thoughtful.”

A particularly concise definition of everyday kindness · Essay, The Important Trifles

• Compassion
• Courtesy
• Kindness

“I found nevertheless after the writing of that Book, that natural relenting of mind which most men feel after they have done an harsh, though necessary action.”

Acknowledging the human unease that can follow necessary severity · The Rehearsal Transpros'd: The Second Part

• Compassion
• Criticism
• Humanity

“I have always thought that sympathy is one of the noblest gifts of the human mind.”

Treating sympathy as a particularly valuable human capacity. · Essay

• Compassion
• Empathy
• Humanity

“It is sometimes a hidden and unbearable thorn in our flesh that makes us difficult and harsh with everyone.”

Original: C'est parfois une épine cachée et insupportable que nous avons dans la chair qui nous rend difficiles et durs avec tout le monde. — Personal suffering can be displaced onto others through irritability and hardness. · Mauvaises pensées et autres (French)

• Behaviour
• Compassion
• Pain

“For could I have the comfort of knowing that you are content - I should be more than glad of his consent.”

Revealing how deeply her friend's peace of mind mattered to her · Letter to Maria Weston Chapman, December 25, 1883

• Compassion
• Contentment
• Friendship

“I am an out-and-out believer in practical measures for improving their condition.”

Expressing support for concrete improvements rather than merely rhetorical reform · Letter on social reform

• Action
• Compassion
• Justice

“I wish we had the humanity to reflect that even the worst authors might endeavour to please us, and in that endeavour, deserve something at our hands.”

Calling for generosity towards unsuccessful creative effort · Preface to The Works of Alexander Pope, 1717

• Compassion
• Criticism
• Writing

“I merely contend that science is apt to be cold-hearted, and does not seem always to take into consideration the tortures she inflicts in her search for knowledge.”

Calling for compassion to accompany scientific inquiry, particularly where living creatures suffer · Essay, The Cruelty of Science, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Compassion
• Knowledge
• Morality

“You are worth loving, and are blessed in loving and being loved.”

A simple affirmation of the reciprocal value of love and affection · Letter, late-life correspondence

• Compassion
• Happiness
• Love

“By wisdom I mean the philosophy which enables us to control our tempers, curb our tendency to severe criticism, and cultivate our sympathies.”

Defining wisdom in practical ethical terms · Essay, Preparation

• Compassion
• Self Control
• Wisdom

“Those are the hours when friendship means the most, — when we feel that we come nearer than at any other time to our intimates, and the sense that we are perhaps lightening another’s burden makes even the commonest intercourse a source of satisfaction.”

A moving account of friendship as shared consolation in times of grief · Letter to John Lothrop Motley

• Compassion
• Friendship
• Grief

“If I could make you well, I believe I would turn doctor again. I hope that dear, good old physician who cures more patients than all the M. D.’s — I mean Time — will make you strong and hearty again.”

A warm blend of medical humour and genuine faith in time as a healer · Letter to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

• Compassion
• Healing
• Time

“The more I know, the more I forgive.”

Linking knowledge with compassion and a less judgmental understanding of others · Letters and Memories of Charles Kingsley

• Compassion
• Forgiveness
• Knowledge

“Christianity is meant to face the misery of the world and seek to remove it.”

Original: Y mae wyneb Cristionogaeth i fod ar drueni'r byd, ac i geisio ei symud. — Presenting faith as an active response to human suffering · Sermon, Ceisio Teyrnas Dduw, July 1886 (Welsh)

• Compassion
• Faith
• Suffering