Inherently on the Buddhist path a person develops two great qualities: compassion and wisdom. Compassion represents love, benevolence, kindness, tolerance, solidarity and altruism, that is, the qualities of the heart or the emotions. It is the basis of all religions and humanism in general.
Wisdom represents discernment, deep understanding, reasoning, self-examination, diligence and self-control, that is, the qualities of the mind or of an intellectual nature. It is the basis of all traditions of practical philosophy of life both in the East and in the West.
Experience shows that the optimum is a balanced development of compassion and wisdom, since too much compassion and too little wisdom leads to idiotic goodness and dependency. And too much wisdom and too little compassion leads to coldness and alienation. Buddhism provides powerful tools for deeply developing both compassion and wisdom.