Wisdom and Compassion are basically the first two factors of the Noble Eightfold Path. Without Right View and Right Intention I don't believe you can walk the Noble Eightfold Path. So Wisdom and Compassion are the motivating forces to develop oneself for the benefit of oneself and for others. Through wisdom we understand there is suffering. We understand that all the happiness in the world is impermanent. I was talking yesterday about the Buddha seeing the four heavenly messengers: ageing, disease, death and the wandering ascetic. Now when we look around us, we see these things almost every day, but how many of us are actually going to renounce the world and go off and become a wandering ascetic?
Someone who actually sees and understands these things, when it is not happening to oneself, personally, is very rare. The Buddha, in his youth, had to have a great deal of wisdom to understand that he is also subject to these things. Because when we look inside our own mind we understand that there is a lot of ignorance, and that somehow we always believe Dukkha always happens to others, but "not me". And how many of us really understand that we are going to die? And when it happens, when we start to decay and age, "Hey, what's happening?" But actually when we look around us we see it happening everywhere. So how many of us are able to apply this understanding to ourselves? It takes quite a lot of wisdom. Fortunately the Buddha in his previous lifetimes had developed the Parami of wisdom so that he was able to understand the heavenly messengers and understand that he was also subject to these things.
"Through his Compassion he obtained it." Compassion is a great motivating force, it's a powerful energy. Wisdom has a capacity to bring up Equanimity so we may think, "Oh, that's just the way things are". But Compassion wants to heal it. So Compassion can give a great amount of energy and determination to heal suffering.
So yes, I would agree with that quote. Actually his Compassion went right back to when he made that Bodhisattva vow. He had the capacity to become enlightened for himself in that lifetime but through his great Compassion he postponed it. How many of us would want to do that? So he had great Compassion, called "Maha Karuna". This is one of the qualities of the Buddha.