Quotes About Empathy

Because it strikes me there is something greater than judgement. I think it is called mercy.

The world is not full of betrayers, it is full of people with decent motives and a full desire to do right by those who know them and love them. This is a little-known truth, but I think it is a truth nonetheless. Empirically, from all the years of my work, I would attest to that. I know it is a miraculous conclusion, but there it is. We like to make strangers of everyone. We are not wolves, but lambs astonished in the margins of the fields by sunlight and summer.

I wanted to listen to him, but I did not want to answer now. That strange responsibility we feel towards others when they speak, to offer them the solace of any answer. Poor humans! And anyway he had not asked a question. He was merely floating there in the room, insubstantial, a living man in the midst of life, dying imperceptibly on his feet, like all of us.

I'd become more adept at being with other people; I'd lowered my expectations of them and learned to let my mind drift into neutral when they spoke.

Until she had had children of her own she had not been able to contemplate the death of either of her parents; when the subject had arisen, in conversation or in her own imagining, she had said only: I just don't know what I'd do.

The strange thing was that it never did seem to satisfy them. They always looked disappointed when they let me go. I wished I could have pleased them, so they might have relented.

Unlike criticism, contempt is particularly toxic because it assumes a moral superiority in the speaker.

Why are you focusing on how different you are from one another, and not on the things that unite us?" The

If you want to make a society work, then you don't keep underscoring the places where you're different—you underscore your shared humanity," she told me. "I'm appalled by how much people focus on differences. Why are you focusing on how different you are from one another, and not on the things that unite us?" The

What people miss presumably isn't danger or loss but the unity that these things often engender.

If you want to make a society work, then you don't keep underscoring the places where you're different—you underscore your shared humanity," she told me. "I'm appalled by how much people focus on differences. Why are you focusing on how different you are from one another, and not on the things that unite us?

The human concern for others would seem to be the one story that, adequately told, no person can fully bear to hear. Joanna's

One of God's greatest oversights is that dogs don't live as long as man.

The human concern for others would seem to be the one story that, adequately told, no person can fully bear to hear.

And yet when I went to sleep, it was like I became part of some larger human experience that was utterly heartbreaking. It was far too much to acknowledge when I was awake.

It was in her nature to love and to nurture; she would not leave those feelings within herself to fester and sour, but instead she chose someone who would receive her gifts gladly. She did not hold herself to be so special that only one special person could she find satisfactory.

Los buenos actos resuenan a nuestro paso, mucho tiempo después de que hayamos olvidado haberlos realizado.

I opened my letter to Margaret by describing the scene—I always enjoy receiving a letter when the writer locates himself or herself in a definite place, and I like to know if there is a cup of tea at hand, or how the light is falling in the room or beyond the window. Such descriptions transcend the barriers of time and space and give reader and writer the illusion that they are together.

I had three long conversations with Marusya over a cup of coffee. She told me her whole rather silly story. To some degree we became friends. I like people like that--doomed, dying, helpless, and brazen. I always say, if you're in trouble, you're not sinning.

Not only must you be an artist, must you be generous, and must you be able to see where you can help but you must also be aware. Aware of where your skills are welcomed.

What most people want in a leader is something that's very difficult to find: we want someone who listens...The secret, Reagan's secret, is to listen, to value what you hear, and then to make a decision even if it contradicts the very people you are listening to. Reagan impressed his advisers, his adversaries, and his voters by actively listening. People want to be sure you hear what they said - they're less focused on whether or not you do what they said.

You're not running around grabbing every conceivable lock to try out your key. Instead, you're finding people (the lock), and since you are curious about their dreams and desires, you will create a key just for them, one they'll happily trade attention for.

A lifeguard doesn't have to spend much time pitching to the drowning person. When you show up with a life buoy, if the drowning person understands what's at stake, you don't have to run ads to get them to hold on to it.

Art, at least art as I define it, is the intentional act of using your humanity to create a change in another person.