Quotes About Empathy

Ruth tells me at least once a day that old people, or people getting old, tend to disengage, back away, turn inward, listen only to themselves, and get self-righteous and censorious. And they mustn't. (I mustn't.)

It is something—it can be everything-to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below; a fellow bird whom you can look after and find bugs and seeds for; one who will patch your bruises and straighten your ruffled feathers and mourn over your hurts when you accidentally fly into something you can't handle.

A poem isn't selfish. It speaks to people.

Which demonstrates our need of a sense of history : we need it to know what real injustice looked like.

and so give your uncommon readers a chance to join you in the solidarity of pain and love and the vision of human possibility. But isn't it enough? For lack of the full heart's desire, won't it serve?

within yourself, you became a grave for her as you were a grave for Chet, and you carried your dead unquietly within you. —

Is it compulsory to be one of the immortals? We're all decent godless people, Hallie. Let's not be too hard on each other if we don't set the world afire. There's already been enough of that.

What if we had born Bushmen in the Kalahari? What if our parents had been undernourished villagers in Uttar Pradesh, and we faced the problem of commanding the attention of the world on a diet of five hundred calories a day, and in Urdu? What good is an ace if the other cards in your hand are dogs from every town

Is that the basis of friendship? Is it as reactive as that? Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting?

By touch we are betrayed, and betray others.

I am a native in this worldAnd think in it as a native thinks.

Poets are never lonely even when they pretend to be.

One must read poetry with one's nerves.

Life is like a mirror, what you see out there, you must first see what is inside you.

Life is just a mirror, and what you see out there, you must first see inside of you.

I cried because I had no shoes. Then I met a man who had no feet.

Look, don't just stare at the pages," I used to tell my students. "Become the characters. Live inside the book.

Human qualities and emotions like love, charity, compassion, tolerance, patience, friendship, desire, hatred, ill-will, ignorance, conceit, etc., need no sectarian labels; they belong to no particular religion.

Being impatient or angry at suffering does not remove it. On the contrary, it adds a little more to one's troubles, and aggravates and exacerbates a situation already disagreeable. What is necessary is … the understanding of the question of suffering, how it comes about, and how to get rid of it[.]

Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world; it is appeased by love. This is an eternal Law.

You think the only people who are people, are the people who look and think like you. But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew.

I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy,To touch my person to someone else's is about as much as I can stand.

Of equality - As if it harm'd me, giving others the same chances and rights as myself - As if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same.

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God.