Quotes About Empathy

It's really sad that you have more infomercials on TV to adopt a dog or a cat, or save a whale, then you do millions of flesh and blood human beings.

If I say that I am more interested in preventing the slaughter of large whales than I am in improving housing conditions for people, I am likely to shock some of my friends.

If I'm hated, so what? If I'm loved, so what?

The idea that a story has to be 'exceptional' in order to be worth telling is curious to me. What if we looked at every single person's story as a site of possibly infinite meaning? What if we came to believe that there isn't hubris or narcissism in thinking your story might be worth sharing - only a sense of curiosity and offering?

No matter what, if my son was gay, I'd treat him like a king.

I wish the media and people that work in media would realize sometimes - and I know it doesn't pay your bills - but sometimes just sit back and think, like, 'Man, what if this was my child? And somebody was doing this to them? And they had to go through it? If somebody bashed them like this?'

As a writer, you always try to imagine, 'What if I were in a situation like this? How would I react?'

What if we strove for compassion, for mercy, for forgiveness? And what if we did this for everybody, including people who have harmed others?

I didn't set out to be a Trump impressionist at all. It wasn't that I wanted to be Trump. It's that I was asking, 'What if Trump was me?'

As long as you're not hurting anybody else, as long as you're being kind to people and you're doing what you love, only good things can come of it.

When a person makes fun of you, when a person is cruel to you, it has nothing to do with you. It's not about what you said. It's not about what you did. It's not about what you love. It's about them feeling bad about themselves.

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.

Cruelty is all out of ignorance. If you knew what was in store for you, you wouldn't hurt anybody, because whatever you do comes back much more forceful than you send it out.

We are members of one another. What binds us together is far greater than what separates us... because of our interconnectivity, what happens to the least of us happens to all of us. Whatever you do for the least of us, you do for all of us.

Every human being, of whatever origin, of whatever station, deserves respect. We must each respect others even as we respect ourselves.

I try to see the good in everybody, and I don't care who people are as long as they're themselves, whatever that is.

Don't matter if you're rich, poor or whatever, you just want to be able to have your own experiences in life and listen and learn from other people.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you're a human being, you feel, you suffer. You're gay, you're sick, you're nervous or whatever.

Life is short. Do whatever you can to help people - not for status, but because the 95-year-old you will be proud if you did help people and disappointed if you didn't.

I don't mind have an uncomfortable conversation if those uncomfortable conversations can lead to a bigger dialogue and help us get to a better understanding of whatever it is we are discussing.

We do not know what lies ahead, yet whatever the challenge, leaders will rise, finding the heart, the language, the caring that embraces and sustains.

You don't cheat anybody out of their experience, whatever it is.

We need to understand that whatever we do, we're all human beings first.

When you have a strong support system, you have the freedom to express yourself in whatever capacity you can.