Quotes About Empathy

Connection, positive connection, which at its most distilled is called love, has incredible healing power.

Lots of kids who have ADD also have something else, something we don't have a name for, something good. They can be highly imaginative and empathic, closely attuned to the moods and thoughts of the people around them, even as they are missing most of the words that are being said.

If you tell a person that she has a mental disorder, you create a mental disorder—not only in the patient but in those who love her as well. The disorder is fear. Chronic fear holds more people back in life than any other mental infirmity. How ironic—and wrong—that the

Inaccurate self-observation. People with ADD are poor self-observers. They do not accurately gauge the impact they have on other people. They usually see themselves as less effective or powerful than other people do.

To tell a person who has ADD to try harder is about as helpful as telling someone who is nearsighted to squint harder.

I've always thought of acting as more of an exercise in empathy, which is not to be confused with sympathy. You're trying to get inside a certain emotional reality or motivational reality and try to figure out what that's about so you can represent it.

The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world.

Social intelligence was therefore always at a high premium. A sharp sense of empathy can make a huge difference, and with it in an ability to manipulate, to gain cooperation, and to deceive.

When the great theologian and philosopher Rabbi Hillel was challenged to explain the Torah in the time he could stand on one foot, he replied, "Do not do unto others that which is repugnant to you. All else is commentary.

You teach me, I forget. You show me, I remember. You involve me, I understand.

We are all worthy of one another.

The hitter can never be the judge. Only the receiver of the blow can tell you how hard it was, whether it would kill a man or make a baby just yawn.

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices--just recognize them.

However much you may fall in love, do not waste that love on a woman who is not considerate in return.

Concentrate on the victims of enemy powers and forget about the victims of friends.

Our dependence on culture means that our minds need to be open to others, so that we can learn from them.

She was ghastly and quite mad, but when I grew up I figured her worst punishment was to be herself and I didn't have to do anything more.

Photography is a major force in explaining man to man.

We should never denigrate any other culture but rather help people to understand the relationship between their own culture and the dominant culture. When you understand another culture or language, it does not mean that you have to lose your own culture.

One of the most effective ways to learn about oneself is by taking seriously the cultures of others. It forces you to pay attention to those details of life which differentiate them from you.

The rule of thumb is that if someone is able to be verbally or physically abusive, he or she is able to understand that the behavior is wrong.

Nationalism has little to contribute today except further suffering.

We have also seen that they give clients feedback about the impact they are having on the therapist—and others. It can be a gift when therapists use process comments to provide interpersonal feedback, and therapists can find constructive, noncritical ways to help clients see themselves from others' eyes and learn about the impact they are having on others (such as regularly making others feel bored, intimidated, impatient, overwhelmed, confused, and so forth).

To envy a man is to misunderstand him or yourself (pp 111).