5 excerpts about Compassion

(the opening lines and selected excerpts)

Chapter I

OF SYMPATHY
HOW SELFISH so ever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrow of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous and humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.

As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation. Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did, and never can, carry us beyond our own person, and it is by the imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his sensations. Neither can that faculty help us to this any other way, than by representing to us what would be our own, if we were in his case. It is the impressions of our own senses only, not those of his, which our imaginations copy. By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person with him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them. His agonies, when they are thus brought home to ourselves, when we have thus adopted and made them our own, begin at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the thought of what he feels. For as to be in pain or distress of any kind excites the most excessive sorrow, so to conceive or to imagine that we are in it, excites some degree of the same emotion, in proportion to the vivacity or dulness of the conception.

That this is the source of our fellow-feeling for the misery of others, that it is by changing places in fancy with the sufferer, that we come either to conceive or to be affected by what he feels, may be demonstrated by many obvious observations, if it should not be thought sufficiently evident of itself. When we see a stroke aimed, and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another person, we naturally shrink and draw back our own leg or our own arm; and when it does fall, we feel it in some measure, and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer. The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the slack rope, naturally writhe and twist and balance their own bodies as they see him do, and as they feel that they themselves must do if in his situation. Persons of delicate fibres and a weak constitution of body complain, that in looking on the sores and ulcers which are exposed by beggars in the streets, they are apt to feel an itching or uneasy sensation in the corresponding part of their own bodies.

The horror which they conceive at the misery of those wretches affects that particular part in themselves more than any other; because that horror arises from conceiving what they themselves would suffer, if they really were the wretches whom they are looking upon, and if that particular part in themselves was actually affected in the same miserable manner. The very force of this conception is suffi- cient, in their feeble frames, to produce that itching or uneasy sensation complained of. Men of the most robust make, observe that in looking upon sore eyes they often feel a very sensible soreness in their own, which proceeds from the same reason; that organ being in the strongest man more delicate than any other part of the body is in the weakest.
[…]

[…]
“The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice.”
[…]

[…]
“Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own. To prevent, therefore, this paltry misfortune to himself, would a man of humanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of a hundred millions of his brethren, provided he had never seen them? Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it. But what makes this difference? When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often be so generous and so noble? When we are always so much more deeply affected by whatever concerns ourselves, than by whatever concerns other men; what is it which prompts the generous, upon all occasions, and the mean upon many, to sacrifice their own interests to the greater interests of others? It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct.”

Chapter I

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men.

Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.

If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament”—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today. I never saw this great-uncle, but I’m supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father’s office.

I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go East and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said, “Why—ye-es,” with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.

Selected Excerpts

(In this remarkable essay from Moralia, Plutarch questions the morality of eating meat and argues that humans have no natural need to kill animals for food. His reflections make him one of the earliest advocates of compassion toward animals in Western thought).

On the Eating of Flesh:
I
Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man who did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature; he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?



The skins shivered;

and upon the spits

the flesh bellowed,

Both cooked and raw;

the voice of kine

was heard.



Though this is an invention and a myth, yet that sort of dinner is really portentous — when a man craves the meat that is still bellowing, giving instructions which tell us on what animals we are to feed while they are still alive uttering their cries, and organizing various methods of seasoning and roasting and serving. It is the man who first began these practices that one should seek out, not him who all too late desisted.



2

Or would everyone declare that the reason for those who first instituted flesh-eating was the necessity of their poverty? It was not while they passed their time in lawful desires Dnor when they had necessaries in abundance that after indulgence in unnatural and antisocial pleasures they resorted to such a practice. If, at this moment, they could recover feelings and voice, they might, indeed, remark: "Oh blessed and beloved of the Gods, you who live now, what an age has fallen to your lot wherein you enjoy and assimilate a heritage abounding in good things! How many plants grow for you! What vintages you gather! What wealth you may draw from the plains and what pleasant sustenance from trees! Why, you may even live luxuriously without the stain of blood. But as for us, it was a most dismal and fearful portion of the world's history the confronted us, falling as we did into great and unbearable poverty brought on by our first appearance among the living. As yet the heavens and the stars were concealed by dense air that was contaminated with turbid moisture, not easily to be penetrated, and fire and furious wind. Not yet was the sun established undeviating



In his firm course,

Dividing day and night;

he brought them back

Again and crowned them

with the fruitful hours

All wreathed with bloom,

while violence



had been done to earth by rivers pouring forth their floods at random and most parts were deformed by pools. Earth was made a wilderness by deep quagmires and the unfruitful growth of thickets and forests; nor was there as yet any agricultural production or professional tool or any resource of skill. Our hunger gave us no respite nor was there any seed at that time awaiting the annual season of sowing. What wonder if, contrary to nature, we made use of the flesh of beasts when even mud was eaten and the bark of trees devoured, and to light on sprouting grass or the root of a rush was a piece of luck? When we had tasted and eaten acorns we danced for joy around some oak, calling it "lifegiving" and "mother" and "nurse." This was the only festival that those times had discovered; all else was a medley of anguish and gloom. But you who live now, what madness, what frenzy drives you to the pollution of shedding blood, you who have such a superfluity of necessities?

Why slander the earth by implying that she cannot support you? Why impiously offend law-giving Demeter and bring shame upon Dionysus, lord of the cultivated vine, the gracious one, as if you did not receive enough from their hands? Are you not ashamed to mingle domestic crops with blood and gore? You call serpents and panthers and lions savage, but you yourselves, by your own foul slaughters, leave them no room to outdo you in cruelty; for their slaughter is their living, yours is a mere appetizer."

It is certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defence; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless, tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their beauty and grace.

(or
Who Is Truly Qualified to Be an Educator?)

"I would like to tell you a story that takes place in another country.

There lives a family consisting of the father, Mordechai; the mother, Rivka; their eldest son, Ari; their daughter, Esther; and their youngest son, Srulik. Living with them is Grandfather Abraham, who is seventy years old. He is paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.

It is morning. Everyone has left for work or school. Rivka has gone to the market, leaving only little Srulik and Grandfather Abraham at home. The grandfather sits comfortably in his wheelchair, neatly dressed, holding his sacred books, ready to read them.

Meanwhile, Srulik is playing with a ball in the room.

As Grandfather Abraham reaches to open one of his books, his glasses slip from his hands and fall to the floor. He stretches out his arm to pick them up, but they are beyond his reach. He realizes that, for the next three hours, he will be completely helpless. Overcome with sadness, he bursts into tears.

Hearing the sobs, little Srulik runs over to him.

'Grandpa, why are you crying?' he asks.

'Oh, it's nothing,' the old man replies. 'Just hand me my glasses.'

Srulik picks up the glasses and gives them back to him. The grandfather smiles and resumes reading. Soon afterward, Rivka returns from the market. Still puzzled, Srulik tells her that Grandpa had been crying.

'Why?' he wonders. And if he could express his thoughts fully, he would add: *Can anyone really cry over something so insignificant?*

Later that day, Esther comes home from school. She rushes to her room, throws herself onto the sofa, and begins to sob uncontrollably. Rivka follows her and gently asks what has happened.

Between sobs, Esther manages to say, 'Everyone used to call me the princess of the class. Now they tear up my notebooks and say I'm nobody.'

Trying to comfort her, her mother replies, 'My dear, is something so silly really worth crying over?'

At noon, fifteen-year-old Ari returns home. When the family calls him in for lunch, he remains standing outside with tears in his eyes.

His father asks, 'Why are you crying? What happened?'

Ari answers through his tears, 'A girl treated me terribly. She won't even look at me anymore. She pretends not to hear me when I speak to her.'

His father listens and then says kindly, 'What foolishness! Crying over a girl? You'll meet another one tomorrow.'

A little later, Rivka returns home upset after visiting a friend.

'They laughed at my dress,' she says through her tears. 'They said it looked like a rag, even though it's the best dress I own.'

Mordechai looks at her in surprise.

'You're crying over a dress?'

He cannot promise to buy her another one; they simply cannot afford it. As he reflects on this, another thought troubles him. Other men drive to work in their own cars, while he—how humiliating!—must take the bus every day. The shame fills his eyes with tears.

Grandfather Abraham watches him thoughtfully.

'In my day,' he says to himself, 'no one owned a private car. What is so terrible about taking the bus? Can someone really cry because he doesn't own a car?'

Meanwhile, little Srulik is crying again.

He is frightened because he believes a devil is hiding behind the door. His mother opens it and shows him that no one is there. Yet Srulik continues to cry, asking only to be held in her arms.

All tears are bitter.

Whoever understands this truth has the ability to educate children. Whoever does not understand it is not qualified to be an educator."

Advice to Parents

Do not expect your children to fulfill your own ambitions. Help them become who they truly are, not who you want them to be.

Do not expect your children to repay you for everything you have done for them. You gave them life—how could they ever repay such a gift? They, in turn, will give life to their own children, and those children to another generation. This is the natural and everlasting cycle of gratitude.

Never take out your anger or frustration on your child, or you may one day reap the consequences. As you sow, so shall you reap.

Never underestimate your child's problems. Life gives each of us burdens according to what we are able to bear. Remember that a child's life is every bit as difficult as your own—perhaps even more so—because they face it without the benefit of experience.

The most important conflicts are often those we have with our own children. Pay close attention to them, for we never know what kind of person a child will become.

Do not be too hard on yourself if there is something you cannot do for your child. Simply remember that you have not done enough unless you have done the very best you can.

Learn to love other people's children as well. Never treat another person's child in a way that you would not want others to treat your own.

A child is not a tyrant who takes over your life. Nor is a child merely your own flesh and blood. A child is a precious Cup of Life entrusted to you so that you may help kindle the flame of creativity within. A child is the living expression of love shared between two people. From the moment of birth, you are not simply raising a child—you are nurturing a living soul.

Never humiliate your child.

Love your child regardless of who they are or what they achieve, even if they never become successful by society's standards. Rejoice whenever you are with them, for children are life's greatest celebration and one of its most precious gifts.

---

## Selected Excerpts from Korczak's Educational Philosophy

Children are not the people of tomorrow—they are people of today. They have the right to be taken seriously and to be treated with respect, tenderness, and understanding. They should be free to grow into the unique person hidden within each of them—the unknown individual who carries the hope of the future. Two rights are especially important: **the right to be loved and the right to be respected.**

Equality should exist between children and adults. Society often speaks of older people with respect while treating children with condescension and patronizing affection. This is a mistake. Children deserve the same respect as adults. They may know less and be capable of less, but they are human beings with their own dignity, and the adults they will one day become deserve our respect from the very beginning.

Many children instinctively recognize the hypocrisy of adults. Adults dislike being judged by children. We do not allow them to notice our mistakes or weaknesses. Instead, we appear before them wearing the mask of perfection. We play with marked cards, defeating the humble cards of childhood with the aces of adulthood. We are the ones who cheat, arranging the deck so that all the winning cards remain in our own hands.

There are many terrible things in this world, but perhaps the worst is when a child is afraid of a father, a mother, or a teacher.

Overprotection is just as harmful. Children need opportunities to gain experience, to take risks, and to learn from their mistakes.

The more a prosperous mother fears the possibility of losing her child, the fewer opportunities that child has to grow into a physically healthy, emotionally mature, and independent human being.

"The door? It may crush a finger. The window? The child may lean out and fall. A fruit pit? They might choke. The chair? It could topple over. The knife? They may cut themselves. A stick? It might put out an eye. A tin can picked up from the ground? Infection. A match? Fire."

Out of fear that death may take our child from us, **we take the child away from life ourselves.**

**In trying to prevent them from dying, we do not allow them to live.**