Quotes About Empathy

When the young king had finished his sad story he burst once more into tears, and the Sultan was much moved.

Nor can we see the coffin of a person we have known, without experiencing some new shock of loss. In this respect, a coffin is like a mirror, in which we see the image of our own condition, and understand that our human differences, whether of appearance, morality or wealth, must finally be reconciled.

There is so little of the meek and lowly Lamb of God in those who are called by His name. Let us consider how our lack of love, indifference to the needs and feelings of

One of the worst things sin did for man was to make him selfish, for selfishness cannot love.

And now He calls us to live and to walk in love. He demands that though a man hate you, still you love him. True love cannot be conquered by anything

I see what the joy is; it is the joy of always loving, it is the joy of losing my own life in love to others.

cannot love him." Oh, friend, you have not learned the lesson that Christ wanted to teach above everything. Let a man be what he will, you

Around the world his pity flies, its wingspan as wide as an albatross's.

If only he could learn to lie so compassionately.

A burned-out face trying not to break open at the horror he has seen. The way they look at you, those poor broken men; it's not empty or terrified at all. It's as if you were the first sign of life, of beauty, after a long, long winter. Does love always form, like a pearl, around these hardened bits of life?

What I wanted to say was: I understand that it wasn't that you didn't want to be with me anymore, but you didn't want to be yourself anymore, the one you were with me.

How do we forgive ourselves? Our parents watch us so carefully when we're children, desperate not to miss a first scream, a first step, a first word, never taking their eyes off us. Yet we do not watch them. They near the end in solitude—even those who live beside us die in solitude—and rarely do we catch their own milestones: the last scream before the morphine settles in, last step before they cannot walk, last word before the throat seals.

Hard to feel bad for a middle-aged white man.

His brain sits before its cash register again, charging him for old shames as if he has not paid before.

Honey, I don't know what happened in your life, but I am so so sorry," and gives him a lilac-scented embrace. Nothing happened to me, he wants to say to her. Nothing happened to me. I'm just a homosexual at a Broadway show.

No, no, I said. No, no, Nathan, not because of you. It's something ... I can't explain it to you. I've seen myself from all sides. That's a rare thing to do. I've seen you, too. I understand things, I think. What I wanted to say was: I understand that it wasn't that you didn't want to be with me anymore, but you didn't want to be yourself anymore, the one you were with me.

He can see the expression on his face, and what is one to do with pity? Is it all just useless Confederate money?

What magnetic force draws us to scenes of pain, and words that wound us? You have seen this, I told myself as I marched along to that apartment. You have seen this already, you've lived through this, spare yourself

You could almost have it both ways—you could forgive this Larry, struggling with his cane and Wanda and harbors and restaurants and shopping, his cancer and gays and Jews and assholes, forgive him and let him die forgiven. And still never forgive the one who left.

But he can no more feel sorry for Swift—

The problem in the world is that we aren't kind to one another. It's kindness and human spirit that drives us. We have one another. That's all we have. We must celebrate them. Remember that. I don't care who you love, but if you love someone…if you love someone, you have to love them every day. You have to choose them every day.

You are seeing suffering, Robert used to say when confronted with a horrible person. You are seeing someone in pain.

That, in essence, is the catastrophe of suicide for those who survive: not only the loss of someone, but the loss of the chance to persuade that person to act differently, the loss of the chance to connect.

Having always imagined myself in a fairly slim minority, I suddenly saw that I was in a vast company. Difference unites us. While each of these experiences can isolate those who are affected, together they compose an aggregate of millions whose struggles connect them profoundly. The exceptional is ubiquitous; to be entirely typical is the rare and lonely state.