“Compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use.”
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Misattributed quote
The full line is Jonathan Safran Foer's (Eating Animals); the Gandhi version is a truncated misattribution with no source in his works.
Likely origin: Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals (2009): 'Compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use, and the regular exercise of choosing kindness over cruelty would change us.'
About this quote
This isn't Gandhi; it comes from Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals. The image is worth keeping anyway. Feeling for others isn't a fixed trait you either have or lack. Choose kindness in small, repeated moments and the capacity grows; neglect it and it wastes away, the same as any muscle.
When to use it
- Someone who volunteers weekly at a food bank starts noticing strangers' hardships he used to walk right past.
- A manager who practices asking about people's lives gets steadily better at reading when someone is struggling.
- A child put in charge of feeding the family pet every day grows gentler with a younger sibling.