Quotes About Empathy

The first thing I do when I read a part is see if I can identify emotionally with a character. If I make that connection, everything else is just working on knowing their life circumstances and manifesting those through practice and research.

With every character, the first thing I want to feel is empathy.

The first thing that I do when I come out every night is to look at the faces in front of me, very individually.

I volunteered at a homeless shelter in preparation for 'Being Flynn,' and when I'm walking along the Bowery, that's the first thing that comes to mind. That's a nice memory.

I know when I go and see a writer, the first thing I think to myself is, 'Are they the character in the book?' You just can't help it; it's the way people are.

For those looking outside-in, it's not fair - or accurate - to assign someone an identity based off the first thing that we see.

For me, the first thing that I respond to - whether it's doing a play or movie or television or anything - is just the character. Is this a guy whose shoes I want to walk in for the next 12 days or six months?

The first thing I do when I start a role is I look to see where we're similar. What do you get for nothing, you know?

Let everyone regulate his conduct... by the golden rule of doing to others as in similar circumstances we would have them do to us, and the path of duty will be clear before him.

The first person to promulgate the Golden Rule, which was the bedrock of this empathic spirituality, was Confucius 500 years before Christ.

The better life rests less on the prohibitions of the Ten Commandments and more on the parable of the Good Samaritan and the Golden Rule.

I believe in the Golden Rule. I believe in practicing it.

To keep the Golden Rule we must put ourselves in other people's places, but to do that consists in and depends upon picturing ourselves in their places.

Can a person be inspirational? Does a person have global sensibility? That's the hardest thing to find.

Only being able to watch is the hardest thing for any footballer.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is just to stay human.

The hardest thing about being on the road is not being with my animals.

I think for anybody, any family, and I know there are families out there that are going through this even now, that it is the hardest thing in the world. Nobody is ever prepared for it.

The hardest thing is to write about people. First and foremost, you have to encounter their humanity. That is the only way you can make them live as characters on the page.

The hardest thing in the world is to watch someone you love really not be able to get themselves together and really struggle on a level so bad when it seems and it appears that they have it all.

The hardest thing to do when people are hurting you is to remain a decent person.

The hardest thing about 'Mulan' is to put yourself in that circumstance and to have the answer be organic, and not be acting.

September 11 was terrible but, if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible.

Inner beauty should be the most important part of improving one's self.