Quotes About Empathy

There is so much sadness and trouble in the world, one's heart is torn all the time, also one's purse, but this life is a school.

Pain is pain, however it begins. And however you got here, one thing is for sure: your self-loathing is not your fault.

Do not call attention to yourself with silly gestures. Do not believe that the joy of everyone in your proximity depends on you. Do not fear that one of them might be bored, in pain, or yearning for a list of famous local architects that you must volubly supply. Do not disgorge personal data to invoke an aura of mutual trust. Do not ask anyone their dearest wish or what they would like their last meal to be. Do not try too hard. Do not riff.

1. What makes you hate yourself? 2. Where do those things occur least? 3. What makes you feel inspired, serene, amused, excited (in a good way), unself-conscious, passionate, compassionate, and more or less at home? 4. Where are those things?

shapes we had to take in order to please others: the shapes that we hate. Our true selves are the selves we would have been had no one tried to break or shame or change us. Our true selves are what those who actually love us see in us. Our true selves are who we have always been, even if they have been in hiding all this time. Our true selves are who we will, in that sheer blue zone above self-loathing, always be.

He was always sorry. He always told you how sorry he was.

We care. We feel. We think. We do not always miss the absent one. We cannot always come when called. Being friends with a loner requires patience and the wisdom that distance does not mean dislike.

After what others would call a fun day out together, we feel as if we have been at the Red Cross, donating blood.

Loners can play well with others-the right others

Some in the outside world might call our traumas trivial. Were you gang-raped? Sold into slavery? Imprisoned in a concentration camp? Did you accidentally tweet a naked picture of yourself to twenty million strangers? No? Then stop whining! They would not understand that it is possible to be annihilated by a smirk, a scowl, an empty threat.

When people began to throw stones at him, Shibli—so the legend has it—threw a rose, and Hallaj sighed. Asked the reason for his sigh, he answered: "They do not know what they do, but he should have known it." And the saying that "the rose, thrown by the friend, hurts more than any stone" has become a Turkish proverb.

Es wäre natürlich ganz und gar verfehlt, das aufzuschreiben, worüber Margot und ich halbe Tage und Nächte lang reden, so intensiv und ehrlich von beiden Seiten, dass man sich fast um Kopf und Kragen redet. (Brief an Klaus Mann, 23. Juli 1940)

You know very well that no one can enter the heart of another and become as one, not even for the shortest moment. Even your mother only made you flesh, and at your first breath you breathed in solitude

The first step toward persuading others is an evident and sincere willingness to be persuaded yourself.

She invites us to smile at the quirks of human nature, not at simple virtue.

To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others.

Above all, remember that the most important thing you can take anywhere is not a Gucci bag or French-cut jeans; it's an open mind.—GAIL RUBIN BERENY

Amazing how shared laughter could sweeten life, make it seem worth living.

Did she need succor so badly that she bore a keen sense when others needed it?

I'd like to give you my heart, but since that might be inconvenient, I've brought you someone else's.

Puck shook her head ruefully. "We haven't even solved the first problem, and I'm worrying about the next one. I must be an idiot." "No," Hush said, wiggling an impossible finger at her. "Only kindness. Very much kindness.

It's very demoralizing to be regarded as a problem rather than an individual.

I learned...that loyalty does not mean stepping into line but falling out of it for the people we love.

When we work toward belief calibration, we become less judgmental of ourselves.