When your fear touches someone’s pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes compassion. To train in compassion, then, is to know all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honor all those who suffer, and to know you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone.
~Stephen Levine
pathwriter 
Very beautiful.
I thought so, too. I especially like his definition of the difference between pity and compassion.