Quotes About Empathy

Even as a little girl, Irma Leopold had wanted above all things to see everyone happy with the cake of their choice. Sometimes it became an almost unbearable longing, as when she had looked down at Mademoiselle asleep on the grass this afternoon.

Sometimes it's easier not to try to understand people.

And while he worked he told her about the hand that had been holding his. Debbie gasped. "How could you stand it? I'm glad it didn't happen to me! I would have died, right there on the stairs, and you would have had to drag my body all the way down.

Throughout the time in which I am working on a canvas I can feel how I am beginning to love it, with that love which is born of slow comprehension.

We must stand together, realizing the complexity of our histories, both personal and social, choosing when we can tolerate each other's company and when we cannot. We must never pretend to be experts on each other's lives, never belittle the deep differences that do exist or pretend that we do not see the places of exposed pain.

When speaking to a Bear of Very Little Brain, remember that long words may bother him.

I'm tired of dealing with crazies. When did it become my job to manage your mental illness?

Look, I could go on and on and on telling you why I hate myself, but it's so self-centered…and I'm not like that. I'm a giver. So I'd rather branch out and start giving it to everyone else.

We are such idiots, We think everyone else has it all figured out. But we're all stumbling around in dark rooms bumping into furniture and stifling our cries so no one will know.

Kindness must be the highest virtue--don't let me forget that ever. Were I to strive for one thing only 'twould be to be kind to others, as you are, Catherine.

A reader lives 1000 lives before he dies.

Friendships begin because, even without words, we understand how someone feels.

We can all be angels to one another. We can choose to obey the still small stirring within, the little whisper that says, 'Go. Ask. Reach out. Be an answer to someone's plea. You have a part to play. Have faith.' We can decide to risk that He is indeed there, watching, caring, cherishing us as we love and accept love. The world will be a better place for it. And wherever they are, the angels will dance.

My lady,' said the servant girl, 'are those who sit at the table great if they are enslaved to their own selfish needs and wishes? Are those who serve the table less if they are free to love? The giver of love receives. The one who understands is understood. The one who consoles receives consolation...' That day the servant was set free for saying strong things gently and gentle things strongly.

A willingness to lose one's self in a story was the first step to learning compassion, to appreciating other cultures, to realizing what possibilities the world held for people who kept at life despite the odds.

It's my belief that animals can help a human being travel to the wounds of childhood. The best part is, once you go there, you can fix things. Get on with life.

A sated man cannot understand a starving one

Sure, I've helped out over the years when I've heard that a friend or a customer is facing tough times, but I've never expected anything in return. I gave out of gratitude because I've been blessed with enough to share.

What I lacked in my mother, I'd found in my women friends.

Let's play our 'benefit of the doubt' game, shall we?" This was a game that I invented when she was little. The goal was to remind ourselves not to take things personally, to extend grace to others by recognizing that we don't know what's happening in their lives. What started as a way to teach empathy wound up being a wonderful tool for me.

Whenever people were nasty, mean or downright rude, I returned to our "benefit of the doubt" game and imagined all the extenuating circumstances in their lives that might excuse their behavior.

none of us make it through life without committing a faux pas that requires a serious, heartfelt, breast-beating apology. By

of the most powerful aspects of friendship is the alleviation of loneliness. When another person indicates that they understand us, that we are no longer alone, there's an expansion of joy in our chests, a feeling like no other. All of us live in solitary confinement, waiting for a friend to appear and set us free.

A person who hates a Jew, will hate a black, will hate a Moslem, will hate a Mexican, will hate an Asian, will hate a….whatever. People who hate, hate. It's not about the object of the hatred. It's about justifying an unjustifiable attitude.