Great Throughts Treasury

"When a person who has some personal suffering sees others empathize with him, he feels a degree of relief."

"The only way to do good deeds without being motivated by the need for approval from others is to reach the level of considering praise and insults equal."

"When performing a good deed and other people are present, imagine you are standing in a forest surrounded only by trees and flowers. In the long run there is no difference between the two situations. Just as the trees have no awareness of what you are doing, so too in the long run it does not make a difference what those people thought about you for the few seconds they saw you."