Children should not be suffer'd to lose the consideration of human nature in the shufflings of outward conditions. The more they have, the better humor'd they should be taught to be, and the more compassionate and gentle to those of their brethren who are placed lower, and have scantier portions. If they are suffer'd from their cradles to treat men ill and rudely, because, by their father's title, they think they have a little power over them, at best it is ill-bred; and if care be not taken, will by degrees nurse up their natural pride into an habitual contempt of those beneath them. And where will that probably end but in oppression and cruelty?
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Sec. 117John Locke
One thing I have frequently observed in children, that when they have got possession of any poor creature, they are apt to use it ill: they often torment, and treat it very roughly, young birds, butterflies, and such other poor animals which fall into their hands, and that with a seeming kind of pleasure. This I think should be watched in them, and if they incline to any such cruelty, they should be taught the contrary usage. For the custom of tormenting and killing of beasts, will, by degrees, harden their minds even towards men; and they will delight in the suffering and destruction of inferior creatures, will not be apt to be very compassionate or benign to those of their own kind. Our practice takes notice of this in the exclusion of butchers from juries of life and death.
John Locke
I shouldn’t care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn’t you suffer? I do! Will you forget me — will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say, twenty years hence, “That’s the grave of Catherine Earnshaw. I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past. I’ve loved many others since - my children are dearer to me than she was, and, at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her, I shall be sorry that I must leave them!” Will you say so, Heathcliff?
Emily Bronte
The genuine Anarchist looks with sheer horror upon every destruction, every mutilation of a human being, physical or moral. He loathes wars, executions and imprisonments, the grinding down of the worker's whole nature in a dreary round of toil, the sexual and economic slavery of women, the oppression of children, the crippling and poisoning of human nature by the preventable cruelty and injustice of man to man in every shape and form.
Charlotte Wilson
The mother may suffer the child to fall sometimes, and to be hurt in diverse manners for its own profit, but she may never suffer that any manner of peril come to the child, for love. And though our earthly mother may suffer her child to perish, our heavenly Mother, Jesus, may not suffer us that are His children to perish: for He is All-mighty, All-wisdom, and All-love; and so is none but He, — blessed may He be!
Julian of Norwich
“Where exactly do you suffer?” the physician asks the patient. “Alas, dear doctor, everywhere,” he answers. “But how are you suffering?” continues the physician, “so that I can diagnose the illness.” No one asks me this, nor do I need it. I know very well how I suffer-I suffer sympathetically. This is exactly the suffering that is able to shake me deeply. Even though I am depressingly and sincerely convinced that I am good for nothing, as soon as there is danger I really have the strength of a lion. When I suffer autopathetically, I am able to stake all my will, and depressed as I am and depressingly brought up, the appalling finds me all the more prepared for what is even more appalling. But when I suffer sympathetically, I have to use all my power, all my ingenuity, in the service of the appalling to reproduce the other’s pain, and that exhausts me. When I myself suffer, my understanding thinks of grounds for comfort, but when I suffer sympathetically, I dare not believe a single one of them, for I cannot, of course, know the other one so accurately as I can know whether the presuppositions are present that are the condition for its effectiveness. When I suffer autopathetically, I know where I am; I place signs along the road of suffering so that I can have something to hold to, but when I suffer sympathetically I go astray, for I cannot really know where the other one actually is, and at every moment I must start all over again, prepared at the next moment to be able to think an even more appalling possibility, the dreadfulness of which I must endure in order not to shirk anything.
Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
Locke, John
Locker-Lampson, Frederick
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