Our human compassion binds us the one to the other - not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.

Who feeds a hungry animal feeds his own soul.

In whom there is no sympathy for living beings: know him as an outcast.

If with uncorrupted mind you feel good will for even one being, you become skilled from that. But a Noble One produces a mind of sympathy for all beings, an abundance of merit.

With patient and firm determination we will press on until every valley of despair is exalted to new peaks of hope, until every mountain of pride and irrationality is made low by the leveling process of humility and compassion

Go out this morning. Love yourself, and that means rational and healthy self-interest. You are commanded to do that. That's the length of life. Then follow that: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. You are commanded to do that. That's the breadth of life.