Quotes About Empathy

perhaps all the trouble in the world has, at its root, our insistence on denying others their full humanity.

in the midst of suffering, it was important to remember one thing: everyone suffered. Some more, some less; some now, some later; some in one way, some in another. But no one was exempt. It was, he said, a lesson, not a punishment. She closed her eyes and bowed her head. Some women were given children; others were not. Some women had parents

I am not one of these people who wants everyone to live the way I live. What causes more trouble on our troubled earth than people like that?

Had he been sent to them like a kind of sun, pouring light into the world without asking for anything in return?

There are some kinds of sorrow that words can never reach, certain kinds of things you can never hold in the box of your thoughts, certain kinds of pain you can't soften in other people.

We make up stories about the other person. In our minds we build these stories--she is this way, he is that way; look, she always do this, he always do that--and then these things keep us from seeing this person full as they are in the present moment.

If I look at you"—he pointed to a very old woman who seemed to be teetering in her chair on the far left-hand end of the first row—"and I see not woman, not person, but piece of the energy of God, the same energy that is inside me, how can I hurt you? How can I able to think bad on you? No. You see?" The

Simply by being your absolute, most genuine self in every interaction of every hour, you provide a great and rare service on this earth.

I have tried, I still try, to do what I can to ease the suffering on this earth, and I'm sure you do the same. The rest of it we have to allow to be, as painful as that is for us. We have to care for ourselves and our loved ones. We have to serve others to the extent we are able. And the rest of it we have to allow to be. It is awful, is it not, the human predicament? Awful and beautiful.

Some people use their own hurt as an excuse for hurting others

Anger is like hands over your eyes when another person is trying to show you.

The past shouts at you, the ugly words or actions echo down across the years.

I decided that if I was worth anything as a person, I ought to be able to let her be with what it was she had to be with then: not urge her to fight it if she was tired of fighting, not ply her with hope, not make her think about who might be upset or worried, not ask anything of her, nothing, just be alive with her while she was still alive.

Some people use their own hurt as an excuse for hurting others, or for soaking in self-pity, or for a sharp anger that knifes up through the surface whenever something reminds them of what happened long ago.

Five dollars," O'Malley insisted. "He's small, but smarter than all the other pups put together. I swear he sometimes knows exactly what I'm saying." I knew what he was saying all the time.

Other people aren't like me in the slightest, I find. I admit though I prefer to know they are happy, just to be on the safe side. If not, they can be dangerous. I don't like seeing their blood, not at all, nor their guts, all that disgusts me. And if anyone deserves pity, it's me. The others will have to manage by themselves. They weren't any worse off before I was born, and they won't be any better off after I'm dead.

Love is not a thought, it is an action. And each loving action that we take infuses us with more energy for loving action in the future.

Most people are on the world, not in it—having no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them—undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate. —JOHN MUIR, THE WILDERNESS WORLD OF JOHN MUIR

Most people are on the world, not in it—having no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them—undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.

Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is.

One must have at least a readiness to love the other person, broadly speaking, if one is to be able to understand him.

It is highly significant and indeed almost a rule, that moral courage has its source in such identification through one's own sensitivity with suffering of one's fellow human beings." (p. 16-17)

When we are dealing with human beings, no truth has reality by itself; it is always dependent upon the reality of the immediate relationship.

Life comes from physical survival; but the good life comes from what we care about.