Quotes About Empathy

And even if what he learned did not aid him in his investigation, and he succeeded only in relieving her of its weight, this would be sufficient, because sometimes the service asked of us is just to listen.

Of their friendship, Montaigne wrote: 'If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.' Louis touched his fingers to the page. Yes , he thought. Yes .

To those who are themselves unhappy, the contentment of others can sometimes be mistaken for tedium.)

does." Not enough of it to avoid dating a jackass like Jeff, but solving other people's problems was often easier than taking care of your own. I considered

I think Philip could spend an afternoon throwing puppies from the top of the Empire State and only stop when his arm got tired." "It's not the same as killing

I've started to believe that most people do what they think is right. The problems arise when what they do is right for themselves, but not what's right for others.

There would always be too few people in this world who cared enough to put themselves at risk for the sake of strangers, and too many who sought to inflict pain on the familiar and nameless alike.

The nature of compassion isn't coming to terms with your own suffering and applying it to others: It's knowing that other folks around you suffer and, no matter what happens to you, no matter how lucky or unlucky you are, they keep suffering. And if you can do something about that, then you do it, and you do it without whining or waving your own fuckin' cross for the world to see. You do it because it's the right thing to do.

Illiteracy is a form of slavery!" he would cry. "We can't waste time blaming anyone. We need to become obsessed with teaching people to read!

How do you explain to someone who thinks you're the devil incarnate, that you're really not?

Jesus on the cross was not declaring that God had abandoned Him. He was stepping into the full psychological calamity of our fallenness … He was asking your question. Feeling exactly what you feel when you believe you've been abandoned by a Father who never abandons anybody.

If you are seeking the counsel of God on a directional matter in your life, never get so caught up in the specifics of your own situation that you selfishly forget about others. Don't neglect the poor. Think outside yourself. It's liberating! Likewise,

So much not to ask. It was a great art, that one. He had learned to deploy it as skillfully as a surgeon his art, or a poet his. To listen; to nod; to act on what he was told as though he understood it; not to offer criticism or advice, except of the mildest kind, just to show his interest and concern; to puzzle out. To stroke Sophie's hair, and try not to deflect her sadness; to wonder how she had gone on with such a life, with such a sorrow at its heart, and never ask.

I feel close to Lloyd in 'Say Anything'. He was like a super-interesting version of me. Only I'm not as good as him. Whatever part of me is romantic and optimistic, I reached into that to play Lloyd.

there is something unforgettably compelling about having actually been there, alone, at two in the morning, gloved, masked, and robed like a latex-covered priest, receiving into my hands a blue, bloody, and lifeless baby and having to decide.

When you see the ugliness behind the tears of another person, it makes you take a closer look at your own.

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.

It is very important to remember what other people tell you, not so much what you yourself already know.

To speak to an audience day after day for a long period is to find out something about oneself. So often we don't know just what we think or feel about this subject or that till we have occasion to marshall our views and to put them into words.

For as we all know, real love is altruism. It is finding oneself through giving up oneself.

Fine as justice is, as an every day quality, it is not winning. It is lacking in warmth. We need something better. We need sympathy with the other fellow and kindness.

If we think we have found truth for ourselves, above all things, let us not impose it on one another. Let us lock upon it all the doors of consciousness. For however inspiring it may be to us, however ennobling, when once we try to impose it on another it becomes a poison.

We can't go far in morality before realizing that right is a relative thing and that those who disagree with us may be striving for it as earnestly as we are ourselves. It is the spirit that counts.

Do not allow your sorrow or your rage to become hostility toward people on the basis of their ethnicity or their religious views. That is unacceptable; it is out of bounds, and if you break the law, we will prosecute you for it.