Quotes About Empathy

I have something that I call my Golden Rule. It goes something like this: 'Do unto others twenty-five percent better than you expect them to do unto you.' … The twenty-five percent is for error.

Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error.

Whoever is free from prejudice should be ready to face misunderstanding.

no pain was permanent, and no loss was real. That even though people treated each other abominably, even though they left, even though you let them go, even though you never laid eyes on them again, this fugue that linked you continued, whether you liked it or not.

Strength is given us for service, not to convey status (see Romans 15:2). I wonder how much trouble would be averted in the world at large if everyone knew and adhered to this principle. What if we knew that our strength was to serve the weak, fearful, or timid? It would all be good!

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves;    ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless,    and see that they get justice. (Proverbs 31:8–9, NLT)

But then I grew up, experienced some life, and I understood that when you merely switch from being a prisoner to being a guard, no one is freed, not even yourself.

Which is why she'd fallen desperately in love the first time she'd met Sharlah. She'd looked into her foster daughter's eyes and she'd known her. Just . . . known her. Sharlah's fears, anxieties, fragile hope, bone-deep strength. Rainie saw all of her daughter. And she loved her, not in spite of her weaknesses, but because of them. Sharlah was a fighter.

Quincy, boyfriends apologize, shrinks analyze. Which are you?

Chances are that he's experiencing a great deal of guilt and self-loathing. Someone needs to help him come to terms with that. Otherwise, there is the danger that he will simply shut down that part of himself. He will start actively considering himself to be a remorseless killer. And he will become one.

I don't speak. In this day and age, we all talk too much and hear too little. Listening has become a forgotten art that the world is sorely missing.

Feel your feels, as the saying goes. Except so many feelings are hard to take.

So many think we must share the same beliefs to get along. In my experience, sharing the same fear is a far more effective strategy.

When men are cruel, it's capricious. When women are cruel, it's serious.

When we'd magically assumed we could do better than our own parents, because we hadn't walked in their shoes yet. We didn't realize just how complicated and lonely even a good marriage can get.

I hate the raw edge to my voice, but I can't stop it. These cases shouldn't be personal to me. But they are. That's the thing I can't help, and Paul couldn't understand.

A perfect family, I think, is one that's learned how to forgive.

Thank you," I say, and I mean it. Ten days, ten months, ten years, you never know when the next craving is going to hit, and in those moments, a single connection can make all the difference.

A detail provided by Emmanuel, I realize now, in order to humanize his sister. Make her real not just for sympathizers, but to any predator who might be holding her.

YOU SPEND ENOUGH time chasing a dog to get back a precious black boot, you start to think like a dog. Spend the rest of your time chasing criminals, and you learn to think like a criminal.

Terms like that, 'Humane Society,' are devised with people like me in mind, who don't care to dwell on what happens to the innocent.

I thoroughly believe that reading and literature can help a society to better understand itself.

Writers matter in a society to the extent that we can help that society hear its unvoiced longing, encounter its erased and disregarded selves, break with complacency, numbness, despair.

I couldn't quit, because of all the kids, and the blacks, and the little people pulling for me. I represent both the underdog and the overdog in our society.