Quotes About Empathy

Working to keep negative information out during a difficult conversation is like trying to swim without getting wet.

Interpretations and judgments are important to explore. In contrast, the quest to determine who is right and who is wrong is a dead end. In

The point is this: difficult conversations are almost never about getting the facts right. They are about conflicting perceptions, interpretations, and values.

Because good listening requires an open and honest curiosity about the other person, and a willingness and ability to keep the spotlight on them. Buried emotions draw the spotlight back to us. Instead of wondering, "How does what they are saying make sense?

He was so benevolent, so merciful a man that, in his mistaken passion, he would have held an umbrella over a duck in a shower of rain.

You have to have that rare combination of thick skin and a tender heart. Most writers get it backward and have a tender skin and a thick heart... Every critic, however ill-informed, represents a point of view which is likely not limited to just him... Sometimes you will disagree with your critic, but you can always gain from him.

If you reduce everything to skin color, you are like someone whose library catalog system puts all the red books over here, and all the gray ones over there. But what do the books say? What are they about? Shouldn't we file them in accordance with what they are saying?

We cannot carry everything, but God still insists that we carry something. We are to weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15). God wants us to be a neighbor to those who suffer without aspiring to the position of a god in the lives of those who suffer. And in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus defines neighbor as the one in front of us right now.

Why should you care if there is a hole in the ship if the hole is not in your cabin?

We are starting to slide when we start to judge our brother's motives by whether or not he experiences the same gut response of reactive compassion to the outrage we are assigned to deal with. But a Christian nurse in Romania who has dedicated herself to caring for abandoned orphans with birth defects may never have heard of Roe v. Wade. She doesn't need to.

You cannot receive what you are unwilling for God to give to someone else also.

Love dictates that you refrain from waving something obnoxious under the nose of a brother with scruples about it. Christ died for him, so you may not do that (Rom. 14:15). At the same time, we need to reject, and reject with godly vehemence, every attempt to bind the consciences of the saints with regard to what they may eat (Col. 2:20–23). We defer to the weaker brothers at lunch, which is not the same thing as letting them teach on this.

Held the right way, narrow truths create the broadest of hearts

Become the kind of person the kind of person you would like to marry would like to marry.

Something as simple as an act of kindness, a compliment, a helping hand to a fellow human being, becomes a way of choosing life.

May we keep rage off of the freeways, and out of the workplace, and out of our homes, and direct it instead at racism, at poverty and at all the evils that we politely tolerate. May we learn in this new year that what really counts the most is not the years but the days, not the machines we have in our lives, but the people we have in our lives, not how much we can accumulate but how much we can share, and with whom.

The tongue hardly quarrels with the teeth even though they both live together. Let us as humans learn to live together because there is enough space for everyone to survive in life

The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; but to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies.

The world is a better place not for persons who love to dare but for persons who dare to love".

Educators by the same token must cast their teaching in behavior rather than feelings toward their students.

There is one experience that brings joy or happiness to every living being. The experience of love.

Who is the loving person? The loving person is the person who loves him or herself. I say this so often, and people say, "Oh yes, you're so right," but they don't do it! You will never be able to love anyone else until you love yourself. Even With your Fat Thighs!

We can ask ourselves daily what we have done to make the world a better place, to make someone smile, to help someone to feel more secure, etc. It's the simple things which have the greatest effect. We must never underestimate the strength of a smile or act of kindness.

The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.