All 20 Uses
compassion
in
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
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- All languages that derive from Latin form the word compassion by combining the prefix meaning with(corn-) and the root meaning suffering (Late Latin, passio).†
Chpt 1 *compassion = sympathy for another's suffering and wanting to help
- In languages that derive from Latin, compassion means: we cannot look on coolly as others suffer; or, we sympathize with those who suffer.†
Chpt 1
- That is why the word compassion generally inspires suspicion; it designates what is considered an inferior, second-rate sentiment that has little to do with love.†
Chpt 1
- To love someone out of compassion means not really to love.†
Chpt 1
- In languages that form the word compassion not from the root suffering but from the root feeling, the word is used in approximately the same way, but to contend that it designates a bad or inferior sentiment is difficult.†
Chpt 1
- The secret strength of its etymology floods the word with another light and gives it a broader meaning: to have compassion (co-feeling) means not only to be able to live with the other's misfortune but also to feel with him any emotionjoy, anxiety, happiness, pain.†
Chpt 1
- This kind of compassion (in the sense of 'soucit,' 'współczucie,' 'Mitgefühl,' 'medkänsla') therefore signifies the maximal capacity of affective imagination, the art of emotional telepathy.†
Chpt 1
- Anyone who has failed to benefit from the Devil's gift of compassion (co-feeling) will condemn Tereza coldly for her deed, because privacy is sacred and drawers containing intimate correspondence are not to be opened.†
Chpt 1
- But because compassion was Tomas's fate (or curse), he felt that he himself had knelt before the open desk drawer, unable to tear his eyes from Sabina's letter.†
Chpt 1
- During those two beautiful days of melancholy, his compassion (that curse of emotional telepathy) had taken a holiday.†
Chpt 1
- He said to himself, I'm sick with compassion.†
Chpt 1
- It's good that she's gone and that I'll never see her again, though it's not Tereza I need to be free ofit's that sickness, compassion, which I thought I was immune to until she infected me with it.†
Chpt 1
- For there is nothing heavier than compassion.†
Chpt 1
- He kept warning himself not to give in to compassion, and compassion listened with bowed head and a seemingly guilty conscience.†
Chpt 1
- He kept warning himself not to give in to compassion, and compassion listened with bowed head and a seemingly guilty conscience.†
Chpt 1
- Compassion knew it was being presumptuous, yet it quietly stood its ground, and on the fifth day after her departure Tomas informed the director of his hospital (the man who had phoned him daily in Prague after the Russian invasion) that he had to return at once.†
Chpt 1
- But how long would he have been tortured by compassion?†
Chpt 1
- But man, because he has only one life to live, cannot conduct experiments to test whether to follow his passion (compassion) or not.†
Chpt 1
- Tomas felt no compassion.†
Chpt 1
- Again, he falls prey to compassion and sinks deep into her soul.†
Chpt 5
Definitions:
-
(1)
(compassion) sympathy for another's suffering and wanting to help
- (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)