The root of compassion

“I know this, and anyone who has ever tried to live knows this. What you say about someone else – anybody else reveals you. What I think of you as being … is dictated by my own necessity, my own psychology – my own fears and desires. I’m not describing you, when I’m talking about you – I’m describing me.” -James Baldwin

Self-honesty about our imperfections and vulnerabilities is the root of all compassion.

The more uncomfortable we are with our own inadequacies, the more we perceive it necessary to condemn them in others.

Be leery of the man who boasts too triumphantly in the failings of those around him.

There is a kind of integrity made of substance and a kind made of style.

The former kind has very little use for gloating.