Quotes About Empathy

I had no shoes, and I felt sorry for myself until I met a man who had no feet. I took his shoes. Now I feel better.

Nothing worse... nothing worse that to be stuck somewhere with some married a-hole and have to listen to him tell you about his f***in' kids... Let me tell ya something, folks... nobody cares about your children, okay? Nobody cares about your children. I speak for everyone. I've been appointed by the rest of the group to inform you we don't care about your children – that's why they're your children, so you can care about them and we don't have to bother.

I love words. I thank you for hearing my words. I want to tell you something about words that I think is important. Words are my work, they're my play. They're my passion. Words are all we have really. We have thoughts, but thoughts are fluid. And, then we assign a word to a thought and we're stuck with that word for that thought. So be careful with words. The same words that hurt can heal.

Never approach a crying woman entering a sports bar carrying a harpoon gun.

Most people have very little control over what sort of day they're going to have. For instance, when one person says, "Have a nice day," the other may well be thinking, "I've just been diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and I'm also coughing up thick black stuff." In this case the well-wisher's words will fall on deaf ears.

I dislike and despise groups of people, but I love individuals. Every person you look at, you can see the universe in their eyes, if you're really looking...

I don't really identify with America. I don't really feel like an American or part of the American experience, and I don't really feel like a member of the human race, to tell you the truth. I know I am, but I really don't. All the definitions are there, but I don't really feel a part of it. I think I have found a detached point of view, an ideal emotional detachment from the American experience and culture…

God made them, wrote one man who said his son was homosexual. They did not choose their status. ... It is not a medical matter. ... You know there are quite as many people among them as among your so called 'normal.' ... Let your campagin remove the penal laws which make these 'diseased' people a prey for mackmailers. Give them recognition and let them live their lives.'

It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.

People are almost always better than their neighbors think they are.

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

For pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.

Hurt, he'll never be hurt--he's made to hurt other people.

Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts—not to hurt others.

People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.

The responsibility of tolerance lies in those who have the wider vision.

If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?

Her own misery filled her heart—there was no room in it for other people's sorrow.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined to strengthen each other, to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories

but very little achievement is required in order to pity another man's shortcomings.

Her heart went out to him with a stronger movement than ever, at the thought that people would blame him. Maggie hated blame; she had been blamed her whole life, and nothing had come of it but evil tempers.

I've never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.

These fellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are: you can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their wit, nor rectify their dispositions; and it is these people -- amongst whom your life is passed -- that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love: it is these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people, whose movements of goodness you should be able to admire -- for whom you should cherish all possible hopes, all possible patience.

So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain.