Quotes About Empathy

To be native to a place we must learn to speak its language.

We Americans are reluctant to learn a foreign language of our own species, let alone another species. But imagine the possibilities. Imagine the access we would have to different perspectives, the things we might see through other eyes, the wisdom that surrounds us. We don't have to figure out everything by ourselves: there are intelligences other than our own, teachers all around us. Imagine how much less lonely the world would be.

I pictured her tragically; it never once ocurred to me to picture her as the tragedy.

If you write, fix pipes, grade papers, lay bricks or drive a taxi - do it with a sense of pride. And do it the best you know how. Be cognizant and sympathetic to the guy alongside, because he wants a place in the sun, too. And always...always look past his color, his creed, his religion and the shape of his ears. Look for the whole person. Judge him as the whole person.

The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling! Just drawing back and drawing in, becoming narcissistic.

It would be okay to laugh one minute, then someone would be bent over, holding his arm where Tom Jones had thumped him. I'd watch tears drop on the wooden floor and I'd love Tom Jones because they weren't my tears.

I never had a brain until Freak came along and let me borrow his for awhile, and that's the truth, the whole truth. The unvanquished truth, is how Freak would say it, and for a long time it was him who did the talking.

Generally, or at least very often, people with a deep interest in animals are the best people around.

There are only three sins - causing pain, causing fear, and causing anguish. The rest is window dressing.

What people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies.

Aren't you getting tired of people hating one another? What do they think they get out of it?

As we leave the theater, we are absolutely convinced that the only thing keeping the world from going crazy is that the problems of three little people do, after all, amount to more than a hill of beans.

And for me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy.

I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

When a movie character is really working, we become that character. That's what the movies offer: escapism into lives other than our own.

To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.

To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts.

Understanding should be promoted in young children before it is too late.

Negotiation, Information Technology, and the Problem of the Faceless Other," in Leigh L. Thompson, editor, Negotiation Theory and Research (Psychology Press, 2006).

Be hard on the problem, soft on the people.

The participants should come to see themselves as working side by side, attacking the problem, not each other. Hence the first proposition: Separate the people from the problem.

what is the best advice one could give a husband and wife getting divorced who want to know how to reach a fair and mutually satisfactory agreement without ending up in a bitter fight?

The soft negotiating game emphasizes the importance of building and maintaining a relationship.

That is what happens when the heart door opens- you become less yourself than part of everything.' Many are the sentinels who guard that door: our fears, our self-importance, our meanness, our greed, our bitterness, and others.