Quotes About Empathy

Speaker and listener understand each other not because they have the same knowledge about something, and not because they have established a likeness of mind, but because they know "how to go on" with each other (Wittgenstein).

Infinite speakers do not give voice to another, but receive it from another. Infinite speakers do not therefore appeal to a world as audience, do not speak before a world, but present themselves as an audience by way of talking with others. Finite speech informs another about the world—for the sake of being heard. Infinite speech forms a world about the other—for the sake of listening.

When I am touched, I am touched only as the person I am behind all the theatrical masks, but at the same time I am changed from within-and whoever touches me is touched as well. We do not touch by design. Indeed, all designs are shattered by touching. Whoever touches and whoever is touched cannot but be surprised. (The unpredictability of this phenomenon is reflected in our reference to the insane as "touched.")

We can be moved only by way of our veils. We are touched through our veils.

In their sexual play they suffer others, allow them to be as they are. Suffering others, they open themselves. Open, they learn both about others and about themselves. Learning, they grow. What they learn is not about sexuality, but how to be more concretely and originally themselves, to be the geniuses of their own actions, to be whole.

For them, the Golden Rule was not something learned in Sunday school. The principle of "do unto others what you would have them do unto you" was nothing more and nothing less than a key to survival.

Be kind to everyone you meet, because we're all battling something.

I want to understand the world from your point of view. I want to know what you know in the way you know it. I want to understand the meaning of your experience, to walk in your shoes, to feel things as you feel them, to explain things as you explain them. Will you become my teacher and help me understand?

Never deprecate another person's sufferings even when imaginary.

Mankind's moral sense is not a strong beacon light, radiating outward to illuminate in sharp outline all that it touches. It is, rather, a small candle flame, casting vague and multiple shadows, flickering and sputtering in the strong winds of power and passion, greed and ideology. But brought close to the heart and cupped in one's hands, it dispels the darkness and warms the soul.

Better to build orphanages than prisons.

Our triumphs seem hollow unless we have friends to share them, and our failures are made bearable by their understanding.

Es pura arrogancia de nuestra parte tratar de juzgar la conducta de otros pueblos. Debemos adoptar una actitud de tolerancia hacia las prácticas de otras culturas.

A Horseman should know neither fear, nor anger.

When we dislike someone, or feel threatened by someone, the natural tendency is to focus on something we dislike about the person, something that irritates us. Unfortunately, when we do this--instead of seeing the deeper beauty of the person and giving them energy--we take energy away and actually do them harm. All they know is that they suddenly feel less beautiful and less confident, and it is because we sapped their energy.

We humans have always sought to increase our personal energy in the only manner we have known, by seeking to psychologically steal it from the others--an unconscious competition that underlies all human conflict in the world.

sudden, spontaneous eye contact is a sign that two people should talk.

loving and energizing others is the best possible thing we can do for ourselves.

To me the great divide is between the talkative and the quiet. Do they just say everything that's on their minds, even before it's on their minds? Sometimes I think I could just turn up my head like a Walkman so what's going on there could be heard by others. But there would still be a difference. For inside the head they are talking to people like them, and I am talking to someone like me: he is quiet and doesn't much like being talked at; he can't conceal how easily he gets bored.

The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world." — Marianne Williamson

when it was your people being persecuted, it opened your eyes to the inhumanity of your actions.

in the face of inhumanity, a good man reacts--but a great one acts.

Folks never understand the folks they hate.

They are slaves who fear to speak,For the fallen and the weak.