"Compassion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... placed her in a chair beside a tall floor-lamp and gently drew off the draperies that hooded her. With little murmurs of compassion, she unbound and ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... study, but her heart failed her as she tapped at the door, and she entered with something of the apprehension of a victim of the Inquisition facing the torture chamber. She advanced hesitatingly towards the Principal's desk, and stood without speaking, a forlorn enough little figure to have excited compassion in the most mercenary heart. Miss Poppleton glanced at her furtively, and looked away again. She had made up her mind not to allow herself to be worked upon by her feelings, and meant to ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... deepest compassion swept the face of the boy. To think that one could be so afflicted, and yet so beautifully tender and always so radiantly cheerful, ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... the attempted burglary. While Mr. Giles, the butler, was giving his version of the affair, there came a timid knock. They opened the door cautiously and beheld poor little Oliver Twist, speechless and exhausted, who raised his heavy eyes and mutely solicited their compassion. Instantly there was an outcry, and Oliver was seized by one leg and one arm, lugged into the hall, and laid on the floor. "Here he is!" bawled Giles up the staircase; "here's one of the thieves, ma'am! Here's a thief, miss! Wounded, ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... joy and tenderness—and even with a sort of compassion; the child whom I saw sauntering along the grass paths of the garden, shaking the globed rain out of the poppy's head, gathering the waxen apples from the orchard grass, he was myself in very truth—there was no doubting that; I hardly felt different. But I had gained ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... upon your countenance, and yet, my daughter, I read the secret thoughts of your heart. I saw your eyes sparkle, your lips smile, and understood your holy purpose." The queen trembled, and stepped shudderingly back. "Holy father," she murmured, "have compassion with a sinful thought, which I suppressed quickly, and which I ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... glorious festival! He was getting the other, the seamy side of things, at last with a vengeance. Knowing with the sure intuition of love how deeply the boy was suffering and how sincerely he repented his blunders the doctor felt far more compassion than condemnation for his nephew. The fineness and the folly of the thing were so inextricably confused that there was little use trying to separate the two even if he had cared to judge the lad which he did not, being content with the boy's own judgment of himself. Bad ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... succeeding as the people had expected, and as he had promised, in taking Pisa, fell into such discredit with the people, that notwithstanding his countless past services, his life was spared rather by the compassion of those in authority than through any movement of the citizens ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... with all her vindictiveness; and now that the French were no longer riding rough-shod over the city, spoke of those who were lurking about in concealment—of whom there were believed to be not a few, with sorrow and compassion. At length the wound I had received at Lieutenant Victor's hands was thoroughly healed, and I was thinking of departure, when the Andalusian dame introduced me in her taciturn, expressive way to a charming young Frenchwoman, whose ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... you yesterday of January 7th, N. S. which has wonderfully excited my compassion for the necessities of the princely family,(764) and the shifts the old Lady' is ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... we see all kinds of monomania and insanity. We learn from them to recognize all sorts of queer tendencies in minds supposed to be sane, so that we have nothing but compassion for a large class of persons condemned as sinners by theologians, but considered by us as invalids. We have constant reasons for noticing the transmission of qualities from parents to offspring, and we find it hard to hold a child accountable in any moral point of view for ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... security as a more or less powerful lord could give, and when he was killed to fall victim to the next who could seize upon her, or to whom she should be allotted by feudal suzerain or chieftain, the mere name of a king who did not disdain a woman's plaint, but had compassion and help to give, must have conveyed hope to many an unhappy lady bound to a repugnant life. James would seem to have been the only man who recognised the misery to which such unconsidered items in the wild and tumultuous course of affairs ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... and from limping. No, I shouldn't do for a handsome young man like Jim, for I may grow lamer and crookeder as I grow older; nor for any man, although you try to comfort me with an almost divine compassion." ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... case!" Thereupon he put out his hand and raised the skirt of his garment, when lo! the lower half of him appeared stone down to his feet while from his navel to the hair of his head he was man. The King, seeing this his plight, grieved with sore grief and of his compassion cried, "Alack and well away! in very sooth, O youth, thou heapest sorrow upon my sorrow. I was minded to ask thee the mystery of the fishes only: whereas now I am concerned to learn thy story as well as theirs. But there is no ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... beyond the pale of the sympathy Marina would have offered him; and Marina—whose exquisite sense of truth, decorum, and duty had been outraged to a degree beyond Toinetta's comprehension—forgot it all in the overwhelming compassion with which she took her little sister in her arms and tried to help her live her difficult life; she realized, as only a large nature could, that love was the only hope for this emergency, and, feeding on ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... determination to expose this man who had falsified all trust. But then came the thought of the girl, and, most of all, there came the words of his dying mother, "Be good, my boy, and God will make you great"; and for his mother's sake he had compassion on the girl, and sought no restitution from her husband. And now, ten years later, he did not regret that he had stayed his hand. The world had ceased to call Lepage a genius. He had not fulfilled the hope once held of him. Hume knew this from ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... induced her to write, with no little contrition, and all the pathos she could collect, to implore pardon for her offence. But in vain. Her humiliation, intreaties, and dread of want, excited sensations of triumph and obduracy, but not of compassion, in the bosom of the man of God. The rector was implacable: his pride was wounded, his prejudices insulted, and his anger rouzed. He had, beside, his own money in his own pocket, and there he was willing it should remain. Now we all know ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... magistrates, all civil, military, and naval officers, all soldiers, sailors, and marines, with all loyal and law-abiding people, to convene at their usual places of worship, or wherever they may be, to confess and to repent of their manifold sins; to implore the compassion and forgiveness of the Almighty, that, if consistent with His will, the existing rebellion may be speedily suppressed and the supremacy of the Constitution and laws of the United States may be established throughout ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... to eat the food and, seeing some children near us who also were hungry, were moved to compassion for their condition and gave them ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... heartily. He felt that this marble ship was a conception of high humor and was not without its pathetic element. The whimsicality of the idea amused him, but the sad earnestness of the nervous, unstrung visionary at his side moved his compassion. ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... is Lord Melbourne's opinion that if a man does marry either at fifty or sixty, he had much better take a young girl than a woman of more age and experience. Youth is more malleable, more gentle, and has often more respect and compassion ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... said Alston seriously, because he had got on one of his own hobbies that he couldn't ride in Addington for fear of knocking ladies off their legs, "don't you know what's changing the entire world? It's the birth of compassion." ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... have led us. The Israelites did not follow when He called them into the Land of Promise, yet God did not desert them; but during the forty years of their wandering He walked by their side bearing their backsliding with patient compassion, and waiting to be gracious unto them when another generation should have come. "In all their afflictions He was afflicted, but the Angel of His presence saved them; He bare them and carried them all the days of old." And so yet, while our wanderings bring us ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... X. Therefore compassion and envy are consistent in the same man; for whoever is uneasy at any one's adversity is also uneasy at another's prosperity: as Theophrastus, while he laments the death of his companion Callisthenes, is ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... between the unfortunate! The poor man will seek in vain for true compassion at the rich man's doors; what he receives is a sacrifice to ostentation and not true benevolence; and the man in sorrow should not look for pity from one to whom sorrow is unknown, if there be such ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... she had a nervous manner, and a way of looking at you as if you were some curious animal that she would like to pat if she were perfectly sure you were not dangerous. And when you were about to take compassion on her shyness, she startled you with a sudden lapse into self-possession. I can see her now looking at Tyson over the frills on her shoulder, with her thin crooked little mouth smiling slightly. She might well look, for Nevill ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... nobler. This should be the aim of all young women. The poor and needy should occupy a large place in their hearts. The sick and suffering should move upon their sympathies. The sinful and criminal should awaken their deepest pity. The oppressed and down-trodden should find a large place in their compassion. How blessed is woman on errands of mercy! How sweet are her soothing words to the disconsolate! How consoling her tears of sympathy to the mourning! How fresh her spirit of hope to the discouraged! How soft her hand to the sick! How balmy ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... between the Swiss and imminent destruction, when, viewing with a compassion, most rare in those days, the impending fate of the heroic mountaineers, the powerful Count of Toggenborg tried to negotiate a peace with the Duke. Leopold's terms, however, were so humiliating and evidently so insincere that nothing came ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of being pitied by outsiders for the theological discipline which I was supposed to have received in Andover; but I must truthfully say that I have never been conscious of needing compassion in this respect. I was taught that God is Love, and Christ His Son is our Saviour; that the important thing in life was to be that kind of woman for which there is really, I find, no better word than Christian, and that the only road to this end was to be trodden by way of character. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... insurgent party, "hold back, for God's sake, and for mine. Remember that these men are only doing their duty, and that whoever is to be blamed, it is not they—no, but the wicked men and cruel laws that set them upon us. Why, now, if these; men, out of compassion and a feeling of kindness to poor persecuted creatures, as we are, took it into their heads or their hearts to let that man and me off, they would have been, probably, treated like dogs for neglecting their duty. I am, as you know, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... insensible to the sufferings of their companions and countrymen, little compassion is to be expected from them towards strangers. From a manuscript journal, kept by a gentleman in the suite of the Dutch Embassador, it appears that, on their route to the capital, the writer felt ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... most miserable, was brimming with compassion for the throbbing girl so nearly related to her, in whom she continually saw her own weak points without the counterpoise of her strong ones. But it was necessary to repress herself awhile: the intended ways of her life were blocked and ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... Purna Vitta and Bhadra Datta, heard from munis accounts of the pains of the wicked, and wishing to see for himself, went to Yama-puri. His coming had been announced by Narada. Yama showed the stranger the different lots of mankind in a future state, in details. Sananda was touched with compassion for the miseries that he witnessed, and by the use of the five and six lettered spells he delivered those imprisoned souls and took them with him to Kailasa. Yama went to Siva and complained, but Siva civilly dismissed the appeal.—Under the title of "The Harrowing of Hell," the apocryphal ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... of greatness, I resign with ease; but to the distinguished champions of genius and learning, I shall be ever ambitious of being known. The native genius and accurate discernment in Mr. Stewart's critical strictures; the justness (iron justice, for he has no bowels of compassion for a poor poetic sinner) of Dr. Gregory's remarks, and the delicacy of Professor Dalzel's taste, I shall ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... an interesting object even to persons of the lowest rank, and would become the frequent subject of conversation: a young prince, expelled his throne by the sedition of native subjects, and by the arms of strangers, could not fail to move the compassion of all his people whose hearts were uncorrupted by faction; and the peculiar character of Charles, so strongly inclined to friendship and the tender passions, naturally rendered him the hero of that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... spoken, so piteously that for a moment the man seemed moved to compassion. His hold relaxed; but when the little form between his hands took swift advantage and strained afresh for freedom he instantly tightened ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... was written that unearthly rage that is alone the property and trait of the woods creatures: the fury with which a she-wolf fights for her cubs or a rattlesnake avenges the death of its mate. Mercy, remorse, compassion there was none. ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... opinion of mankind, yet the most slavish subjection to their most fatal prejudices— of a sublime piety towards God, and a wild violation of his holiest laws. From the other we rise with feelings of sincere compassion for the ignorance of the most enlightened. All the prominent features of Hume's character were invisible to his own eyes; and in that meagre sketch which has been so much admired, what is there to instruct, to rouse, or to elevate—what light thrown over the duties of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... I replied, fairly breaking into sobs, and burying my face in my hands. "I can only appeal to your compassion. I am ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... that poor breath which had been taxed by the rising excitement of his speech. And also he wished to check that excitement. Deronda dared not speak the very silence in the narrow space seemed alive with mingled awe and compassion before this struggling fervor. And presently Mordecai ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... who were carrying mill-stones then came along, inquired into her trouble, and expressed their compassion by giving her a mill-stone, which they rolled into her back yard. A little later a man arrived carrying hoes and pickax, and asked her why she was crying so hard. She told him her grief, and he said he would gladly help her if he could, but he was only a well-digger, and could ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... the grave austerity of Cato. "The question for us is not that of punishing a crime, but of preserving the state—or of what the degenerate Roman of to-day cares for more than the state, our lives and property. To speak of clemency and compassion is an abuse of terms only too common, when vices are habitually dignified with the names of virtues. Let us for once act with vigour and decision, and doom these convicted traitors to the death they deserve." The decree of death was carried to immediate ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... of No. 4 was at last opened. The cavaliere descended the stairs very slowly, supported by Marescotti, whose looks expressed the deepest compassion. A fiacre was ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... ascend, drawing it up with them, and severing it from the mortal part, and showing only the vision of ideal things; but when they descend, not casting it down, but descending with it from humanity or compassion towards our race, so as to give assistance and help, in order that, inspiring what is noble, they may revive the soul which is borne along on the stream of ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... her. And this fit continued sixteene houres, during which passion Edward Drake her father came to the Towne, touched with griefe for this torture of his daughter (as parents hearts are relenting and tender, and naturall compassion is soone stirred vp in them) tooke her vrine, went to one for his aduice (whose fact herein is no way iustifiable, and argued but a small measure of religion, and the knowledge of God in him) who first tolde vnto him the cause of his comming, that is, to seeke help for his ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts
... letter yet about her, Louisa would suspend the occupation of the moment, and look for the reply as earnestly as Sissy did. And when Mr. Gradgrind answered, "No, Jupe, nothing of the sort," the trembling of Sissy's lips would be repeated in Louisa's face, and her eyes would follow Sissy with compassion to the door. Thus a warm friendship sprang up between the girls, and a similar one between the mathematical ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... with her father's liberal views regarding the infinite wideness of divine compassion toward human frailty, Esther had a most exacting sense of personal ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... community of deer, antelopes, bears, wolves, or birds is a source of far more mental satisfaction than could be found in any number of solitary animals. A small pen with a solitary animal in it at once suggests the prison-and-prisoner idea, and sometimes arouses pity and compassion rather than pleased admiration. The peaceful herd or flock is the thing to strive for as the highest ideal attainable in an exhibition of wild animals. But mark well ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... to the west, beyond Port-Bredy, in which she had served as supernumerary milkmaid during the spring and summer required no further aid. Room would probably have been made for her at Talbothays, if only out of sheer compassion; but comfortable as her life had been there, she could not go back. The anti-climax would be too intolerable; and her return might bring reproach upon her idolized husband. She could not have borne their pity, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... have erred in judgment, they have declared their thoughts without prejudice, fear, or affectation; and strove to forget the author's person, while his works fell under their consideration. They have treated simple dulness as the object of mirth or compassion, according to the nature of its appearance. Petulance and self-conceit they have corrected with more severe strictures; and though they have given no quarter to insolence, scurrility and sedition, they will venture to affirm, that no production of merit ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... true he was filled with compassion; God's nature in him over-flowed; He knew all the people with burdens, And strove hard to lighten ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... into the wood till he found the rock hut. In the hut sat a very old woman, who was the Dragon's grandmother. She asked him how he came, and what was his business there. He told her all that happened, and because she was pleased with him she took compassion on him, and said she would ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... religionist had told him that disease is a visitation of the Lord for our sins, in the same breath with which he had added that the Lord was loving and compassionate. If that were so, then this was the ideal place to witness the infinite goodness and compassion of the Creator of all earthlings. But, the first scene to meet his gaze was that of a woman in childbirth. The torture, the excruciating pain, and the mental anguish of the human female before his eyes, defied his Martian power of expression. This process of birth, it was ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... darkened trees, the shadows lengthening across the fields, the smoke from the roofs of a little village, and the stars coming into view one by one in the sky—all this moved him deeply, moved him to a wistful compassion for himself. ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... absurdities and peregrine extravagances, whereby we are certified of thine ignorance and ill-will to us. Verily, thou hast put out thy hand to that whereunto thou canst never reach and, but that we have compassion on Allah's creatures and the lieges, we had not held back from thee. As for thy messenger, he went forth to the market streets and published the news of thy letter to great and small, whereby he merited retaliation from us, but we spared him and remitted his offence, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... gate between them and putting her hands on his implored him to tell her what was the matter. He looked singularly disturbed; his fine eye twinkled with compassion; but his face, never a weak one, shewed no signs of ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... stooping away, his tired face looking aged and haggard with anxiety. His beautiful young daughter was scarcely less dear to him than to her mother, and the sound of her cries cut to his heart; yet in the midst of his anguish he had a pang of compassion for the poor child who, as he believed, was the thoughtless cause of the accident. What agony of remorse must be hers! What torture ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... to me, how wonderful and queer was a world which embraced within it, not only this red gloating dog, fresh from his feast on the decaying flesh of lamb, but all those hundreds of beings in whom the sight of a fly with one leg shortened produced a quiver of compassion. For in this savage, slinking shadow, I knew that I had beheld a manifestation of divinity no less than in the smile of the sky, each minute growing more starry. With what Harmony—I thought—can these two be enwrapped in this round world so fast that it cannot ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... reluctance and while in the act seemed determined to purchase my death by killing two or three of these monsters of cruelty, thinking it impossible to survive the bloody treatment.... Not one of them showed the least compassion, but I saw the tears run down plentifully on the cheeks of a Frenchman who sat behind." The tortures were continued until the evening of what Gyles might well call "a very tedious day." Finally a couple of Indians ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... had shown her the figure of the Colonel, she had been seized by an actual passion for this nameless mummy. It was nothing like what she felt towards young Renault, but it was a combination of interest, compassion and respectful sympathy. ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... her?" cried the Yorkshireman, and then hailing Mr. Jorrocks he holloaed out, "In the name of the prophet, Figs, what are you doing there?" "Oh, gentlemen! gentlemen!" exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, brightening up as he recognised the boat, "take compassion on a most misfortunate indiwidual—here have I been in this 'orrid 'oy, ever since three o'clock yesterday afternoon and here I seem likely to end my days—for blow me tight if I couldn't swim as fast as it goes." "Look sharp, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... somebody, and that she was no longer alone in the world, enabled her to endure the persecutions of Justin and the Faubourg urchins. A song of joy, whose glad notes drowned their hootings, now sounded in her heart. She thought of her father with tender compassion, and did not now so frequently yield to dreams of bitter vengeance. Her dawning love cooled her feverish broodings like the fresh breezes of the dawn. At the same time she acquired the instinctive cunning of a young girl in love. She felt that she must maintain her usual ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... disappointment. That much at least He had done—she would give Him His due—but at the expense of her entire self-respect. Oh, He must have a cold, calculating heart ... could one only see right down into it. The tale of His clemency and compassion, which the Bible told, was not to be interpreted literally: when one came to think of it, had He ever—outside the Bible—been known to stoop from His judgment-seat, and lovingly and kindly intervene? It was her own absurd ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... Can you with one hand prop a falling Tower? Or with the other stop the raging main, When it breaks in on the usurped shore? Or any thing that is impossible? And then conclude that there is some way left, To move him to compassion. ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... build as they had willed; and all that the spirit had willed to do, and all that the hands set about to achieve, was washed away by just one of those waves of fate which rolled in and took them with no more of regret, no more of compassion, than the sea would have in washing away the play-house built upon the sands. And if the sea were chidden for having taken away the house upon the sands, which meant much to some one, it would quite likely answer grimly: "I did not know ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... nervous, so restless, so miserable, that Lettice observed it with much compassion, and came and sat by her, which was her way of comforting her friend when she saw she wanted comfort. Mrs. Melwyn took her hand, and held it between both hers, and looked as if she ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... deep-wounded in his thigh, And halting-back from battle. From his head The sweat, and from his shoulders ran profuse, And from his perilous wound the sable blood Continual stream'd; yet was his mind composed. 990 Him seeing, Menoetiades the brave Compassion felt, and mournful, thus began. Ah hapless senators and Chiefs of Greece! Left ye your native country that the dogs Might fatten on your flesh at distant Troy? 995 But tell me, Hero! say, Eurypylus! Have the Achaians power still to withstand The enormous force ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... daughters will their suit deny." So runs the joke, while James, with sigh profound, And face of care, looks moveless on the ground; His cares, his sighs, provoke the insult more, And point the jest—for Barnaby is poor. Last in my list, five untaught lads appear; Their father dead, compassion sent them here, - For still that rustic infidel denied To have their names with solemn rite applied: His, a lone house, by Deadman's Dyke-way stood; And his a nightly haunt, in Lonely-wood: Each ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... consent or privity of your master or mistress, is a liberty you must not take; charity and compassion for the wants of our fellow-creatures are very amiable virtues, but they are not to be indulged at the expense of your own honesty, and other ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... seriously convinced that thereby they had accomplished something that was praiseworthy and would contribute to their eternal welfare. The power of religious dogma, that has been inculcated early, is so great that it destroys conscience, and finally all compassion and sense of humanity. But if you wish to see with your own eyes, and close at hand, what early inoculation of belief does, look at the English. Look at this nation, favoured by nature before all others, endowed before all others ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... seemed to him to imply that the representation of the slender state of his finances had been made with his concurrence, and he felt, as he told his wife, that he had been held up in the House as an object of compassion. "If I had a favour to ask," he wrote emphatically, "money would be the last thing I should require from an impoverished country. I have motives for my conduct which I would not give in exchange for a thousand pensions." But when he heard of Stanhope's amendment of the original proposition, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... nature succumbed. He sank on the floor, fainting. The padrone thought at first it was a pretense, and was about to repeat the strokes, when a look at the pallid, colorless face of the little sufferer alarmed him. It did not excite his compassion, but kindled the fear that the boy might be dying, in which case the police might interfere and give him trouble; therefore he ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Muller's soul was to know fully the secrets of prevailing with God and with man. George Whitefield's life drove home the truth that God alone could create in him a holy earnestness to win souls and qualify him for such divine work by imparting a compassion for the lost that should become an absorbing passion for their salvation. And—let this be carefully marked as another secret of this life of service—he now began himself to read the word of God upon his knees, and often found for hours great blessing in such meditation ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... with a better relish than the poorest mason who builded the house, or the humblest laborer who planted the vineyard. Therefore, 'when goods increase, they are increased that eat them.' And this, my brethren, may teach us toleration and compassion for the rich. We share their riches whether they will or not; we do not share their cares. The profane history of our own country tells us that a princess, destined to be the greatest queen that ever ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... of the Roman people, who, not able to resist so moving a spectacle, acquitted the criminal. Sergius Galba escaped the severity of the laws by appearing in court with his own little children, and the son of Gallus Sulpitius, in his arms. The sight of so many wretched objects melted the judges into compassion. This we find equally attested by some of our historians and by a speech of Cato. What shall I say of the example of Phryne, whose beauty was of more service in her cause than all the eloquence of Hyperides; for tho his pleading was admirable in her defense, yet perceiving it to be without effect, ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... her young women, but to get all the work she possibly could out of their hands, and as well done, and as speedily done as possible. If she objected to night-work in addition to day-work, it was not in the slightest degree out of compassion for the aching limbs and wearied eyes of the poor girls; but because wax candles were expensive, and tallow ones were apt to drip; and there was always double the duty required from the superintendent (her special favorite), to keep the young women at those times to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... he said at length, in a tone of gentle compassion, "that you must have suffered a ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... and I will tell you some time," said Mrs. Manly, her eyes following the retreating figure with looks of deep compassion. "In the mean time, be very kind to him, very gentle ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... passed, and then the kindly sea had compassion on my lonely, forlorn condition, and rose and toyed with my boat, and finally lifted her and bore her safely back to ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... left off speaking, there emerged from the forest our other detachment and the guide, the latter carrying two fat turkeys. He greeted the backwoodsman as an old acquaintance, but with a degree of sympathy and compassion in the tone of his salutation which contrasted strangely with his usual ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... Compare the definition of an 'outcast' in the Vasala-sutta: "He that gets angry and feels hatred, a wicked man, a hypocrite, he that embraces wrong views and is deceitful, such an one is an outcast, and he that has no compassion for living things."] ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... horror-struck, sick at heart, overwhelmed with a quick burst of irresistible compassion for this brute agony he could not relieve. The sweetness was gone from the evening, the sense of peace, of security, and placid contentment was stricken from the landscape. The hideous ruin in the engine's path drove all thought of his poem from his mind. The inspiration ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... divine, all love excelling, Joy of heaven, to earth come down! Fix in us thy humble dwelling, All thy faithful mercies crown. Father! thou art all compassion, Pure, unbounded love thou art; Visit us with thy salvation, Enter every ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... interior because William Penn was baptized in it, but when we had got inside we found it so full of scaffolding and the litter of masonry, and the cool fresh smell of mortar from the restorations going on that we had no room for the emotions we had come prepared with. With the compassion of a kindly man in a plasterer's spattered suit of white, we did what we could, but it was very little. I at least was not yet armed with the facts that, among others, the headless form of Archbishop Laud had been carried from the block on Tower Hill and laid in ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... poems is heightened by our love and pity for the poet, writing not for fame but for consolation, and uttering from the depths of a half-broken heart his reverent homage to the power of religious truth. Our affection is not colder, and our compassion is more profound, when we contemplate the agitated and erring life of Robert Burns (1759-1796), the Scottish peasant, who has given to the literature of the Anglo-Saxon race some of its most precious jewels, although all which this extraordinary man achieved was ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... make a picture of it, it would be full of dignity and solemnity and pathos; and it could touch you. You would imagine it to be anything but what it was. There is reverence there, and tenderness, and gratefulness, and compassion, and resignation, and fortitude, and self-respect—and no sense of disgrace, no thought of dishonor. Everything is there that goes to make a noble parting, and give it a moving grace and beauty and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... from a feeling of humanity and so to speak compassion, I should be glad to be of service to her in any way, foreseeing her unfortunate position. I believe the whole of this poverty-stricken family ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the coat are all frayed at the end, The seams of the waistcoat have "started," But I have a weakness for elderly friends, And now we need never be parted; No more when I wear it shall people esteem The bardlet in need of compassion; They'll merely consider him rather extreme In his fervent devotion ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... outcome might be, little caring what might be the verdict of the world of Gold City; knowing only two things—that Jane was dead and life could never be the same to him; and that the God who looked down in tender compassion on his child shut in between those dark stone walls, knew all about it. Job had read how one like unto an angel walked in the furnace of old with God's saints; he felt, now, that the Christ came and sat by his side in ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... but finding she the more persisted in Eagerness of Passion, he us'd all the tender Assurance that he could force from himself, that he would have for her all the Respect, Esteem and Friendship that he was capable of paying; that he had a real Compassion for her: and at last she prevail'd so far with him, by her Sighs and Tears, as to own he had a Tenderness for her, and that he could not behold so many Charms, without being sensibly touch'd by 'em, and finding ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... singers come With old kind tales of pity from The Great Compassion's lips, That makes the bells of Heaven to peal Round pillows frosty with the feel Of Death's ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... sermons Upon preaching and preachers Blessed Francis and the Bishop of Belley's sermon Upon controversy The same subject continued Upon reason and reasoning Upon quoting Holy Scripture Upon political diplomacy Upon ambition Upon courts and courtiers Upon the Carnival An instance of his compassion for animals Upon hunting Upon the fear of ghosts His ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... of quietude and restfulness about an ordinary cathedral city. Some of our cathedrals are set in busy places, in great centres of population, wherein the high towering minster looks down with a kind of pitying compassion upon the toiling folk and invites them to seek shelter and peace and the consolations of religion in her quiet courts. For ages she has watched over the city and seen generation after generation pass away. Kings and queens have come to lay their offerings on her altars, ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... Italian Poets, and filled with dreams of her fatherland; describe her with all the flashes of her princely nature, shining forth through humble circumstance and obscure position; waken in your listener compassion, respect, admiration for her kindred exiles,—and I think our work is done. She will recognize evidently those whom her brother seeks. She will question you closely where you met with them, where they now are. Protect that secret; say at once that it is not your own. Against your descriptions ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Weimar to Coppet, I could not help envying the existence of every object that circulated in nature, even the birds and insects which were flying round me; I asked only a day, a single day, to talk to him once more, to excite his compassion; I envied those forest trees whose existence is prolonged for centuries; but the inexorable silence of the grave has something in it which confounds the human intellect; and although it is the truth of all others the best known to us, the strength of the impression it leaves can never ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... She at first thought of calling her groom to make a fire; but reflected that would be a hazardous proceeding. Molly perhaps, and most probably, would not allow it. If she would allow her, it would be a great step gained. Daisy's heart was so full of compassion she could not but try. There was a little bit of an iron stove in the room, and a tea-kettle, small to match, stood upon ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... he cursed his cowardice. What was it that had withheld him? A certain bright unapproachableness seemed to keep him at arm's length. She was not the kind of woman whose compassion could be circumvented; there was no chance of slipping past the outposts; he would never take her by surprise. Well—why not face her, then? What he shrank from could be no worse than what he was enduring. He had pushed back his chair and turned to go upstairs when a new expedient presented itself. ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... habits without the means of gratifying them. He must live well, and he has not the means. Is there a more pathetic case? As for a mere low beggar—some labourless labourer, or some weaver out of place—don't let us throw away our compassion upon THEM. Psha! they're accustomed to starve. They CAN sleep upon boards, or dine off a crust; whereas a gentleman would die in the same situation. I think this was poor Morgiana's way of reasoning. For Walker's cash in prison beginning presently to run low, and ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... what was my crime? Out of clay and water I made the first men, and afterwards, seized with compassion, I stole for them fire from the sky. Such was my crime. Jupiter, who then reigned over Olympus, condemned me to the most cruel of tortures. Come, climb this rock ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... with my love and admiration for Joseph Wilmot's daughter. A woman's heart must have been something less than womanly if it could have tailed to appreciate my darling's devotion: and my mother was about the last of womankind to be wanting in tenderness and compassion for any one who had need of her pity and was worthy ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... control, put within the power of the Censor by the time of the Peace Conference every possible form of protest, every call for light, every cry of pain, every demand that such a "horrible nonsense" as war should cease from human affairs, every plea for compassion ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... was to receive them open, Mr. Madocks undertook to rouse the inmates, while Lord Byron and Mr. Bailey sauntered, arm in arm, up the street. During this interval, rather a painful scene occurred. Seeing an unfortunate woman lying on the steps of a door, Lord Byron, with some expression of compassion, offered her a few shillings: but, instead of accepting them, she violently pushed away his hand, and, starting up with a yell of laughter, began to mimic the lameness of his gait. He did not utter a word; but "I could feel," said ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... him so—tell him he's got to wait? Shall I tell him for you, you poor little thing?" Adela's voice was full of compassion. ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... famine, pestilence, and war, and who was now compelled to slave as herd-boy for a hard mistress,[65] and to mind the children as well as to look after the sheep and goats. He sang sad songs, till at length the wood-nymph took compassion on him, and sang to him one evening from the summit of an oak-tree, telling him that good luck would be his in the morning. Next morning he found a lark's egg hidden among leaves, which he hid in his bosom ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... most divergent students of psychological law. Herbert Spencer analysed it with characteristic thoroughness. Nietzsche went farther. He reacted violently against the onslaughts of pity in his own soul, and in philosophical self-defence inverted the promptings of compassion. The war has shown the human need of self-defence against excessive sympathy. We are surfeited with horrors on land and sea; the ghastly truth of a carnage which exceeds anything known in history, of maimed and broken lives, ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... "Compassion, love of our brothers, for those who love us and for those who hate us, love of our enemies; yes, that love which God preached on earth and which Princess Mary taught me and I did not understand—that is what made me sorry to part with life, that is what remained for me had I lived. But ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... now I find 'tis I must prove That men have no compassion; When we are won, you never love Poor ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... long, weary time many a poor prisoner had felt the comfort of her presence near her sick couch and her grave. Kind looks had cheered other desponding souls when words of compassion were forbidden ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... losing its lustre. By as much as you take the God-given grace of fancy from man, by so much do you impoverish his eyes. The eye is so beautiful and serves so very many noble purposes, and is, too, so ready in the expression of tenderness, of pity, of love, of solicitude, of compassion, of dignity, of every gentle mood and noble inspiration, that in that metaphor which contemplates the eternal vigilance of the Almighty we recognize the best poetic expression of ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field |
