Quotes About Empathy

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

our species is the only one not allowed to go to the vet to be painlessly put out of our misery.

As H. L. Mencken said: 'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men – above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends. ALBERT EINSTEIN

I should have been put down at birth.

We are seldom taught that the key to experiencing a meaningful life is to make a difference in the lives of others.

But sometimes things are said and they're not just words. They are everything that one person thinks of another in a sentence. Just one sentence.

One man's feeling is not always equal to all life is. Sometimes it's not equal to anything much at all.

One man's feeling is not always equal to all life is. Sometimes it's not equal to anything much at all.

Refugees are not like you and me. They are you and me. That terrible river of the wretched and damned flowing through Europe is my family. And there is no time in the future in which they might be helped. The only time we have is now.

Maybe he doesn't really think it now. But sometimes things are said and they're not just words. They are everything that one person thinks of another in a sentence. Just one sentence.

I am a part of all that I have met.

What's friendship's realest measure? I'll tell you. The amount of precious time you'll squander on someone else's calamities and fuck-ups.

When you are sixteen you do not know what your parents know, or much of what they understand, and less of what's in their hearts. This can save you from becoming an adult too early, save your life from becoming only theirs lived over again--which is a loss. But to shield yourself--as I didn't do--seems to be an even greater error, since what's lost is the truth of your parents' life and what you should think about it, and beyond that, how you should estimate the world you are about to live in.

And what there is to learn from almost any human experience is that your own interests usually do not come first where other people are concerned--even the people who love you--and that is all right. It can be lived with.

Don't let what your parents do disappoint you.

Only sometimes you can't feel anything about a subject without hypothesizing its extinction.

He was like my father. They each wanted me to be their audience, to hear the things they needed to express.

Our sympathies are most required when they seem least due.

This is the only badge of true friendship I'm sure of: not to be curious.

Anyone could be anyone else in most ways. Face the facts.

since he seemed to be the one left out somehow, the one who would be lonely soon, the one who had done something he would someday wish he hadn't and would have no one to tell him that it was all right, that they forgave him, that these things happen in the world.

I don't know what makes people do what they do, or call themselves what they call themselves, only that you have to live someone's life to be the expert.

don't see what this has to do with us." I say back, "Does everything have to be about you? Can you not project yourself outside yourself? Can you not take on another's life for your own benefit?