Quotes About Empathy

When these impoverished, indebted folk asked him what they should do, he told them to share what little they had with those who were even worse off—an ethic that would become central to Jesus's movement: "Whoever has two shirts must share with him who has none, and whoever has food must do the same."12

All the great spiritual traditions have insisted that what holds us back from enlightenment is selfishness and egotism; they have also said that a practical concern for everybody (not simply those who belong to your own class or those you find congenial) was the test of true spirituality.

In other words, when making an effort to understand something strange and alien to you, it is important to assume that the speaker share the same human nature as yourself and that, even though your belief systems may differ, you both have the same idea of what constitutes truth.

But Christina never forgot that "when I was a child, I needed only one person to understand my suffering and pain.… One is very important."5

what Tibetan Buddhists call "the inability to bear the sight of another's sorrow," so that we feel it almost as intensely as we feel our own. We

we sometimes fail to recognize the signs of poverty, loneliness, grief, fear, and desolation in our own city, our own village, or our own family.

True listening means more than simply hearing the words that are spoken. We have to become alert to the underlying message too and hear what is not uttered aloud. Angry

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity.

cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

compassion" derives from the Latin patiri and the Greek pathein, meaning "to suffer, undergo, or experience." So "compassion" means "to endure [something] with another person," to put ourselves in somebody else's shoes

Martin Luther King Jr. believed that the highest point of Jesus's life was the moment when he forgave his executioners

the Golden Rule, which asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.

Compassion can be defined, therefore, as an attitude of principled, consistent altruism. The

All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.

I turned to the animal world from the world of men; my heart was heavy with the tragedy of the night.

Love the pride of the conquered nations, and leave them to honour their father and their mother.

Listening is more than just being quiet for a moment. It's not just the pause we were talking about earlier. Listening includes paying attention to the whole person, and especially their emotions.

Listening requires attending to the other person's heart.

When showering life-giving words on another human, don't just pick the people you know well. Notice the one who least expects to be noticed.

Don't say something permanently painful just because you are temporarily ticked off.

When a family member's behavior threatens to knock the nice right out of us, we can pause. Recalculate. Punch in a different destination for the words now downloading from our brains onto our tongues. We can program them to first stop at gentleness, swing by to pick up respect, and finally — arrive with grace. Then our mouths can utter pleasant words rather than those that are caustic, cutting, and unkind.

I want you to get out a nice note card or piece of stationery and write a letter to yourself. Yes. To yourself. In it, encourage yourself with what you have learned from this journey. What do you need to work on? Why do you need to work on it? What relationships are being damaged or precious time and memories lost because of how you interact with those in your life, whether they are family, friend, or even foe? Spend some time thinking about this and then let your pen and paper do the talking.

Listening includes paying attention to the whole person, and especially their emotions. When we really listen, we give careful attention not just to the words a person says but also to the feelings he or she is trying to communicate. Listening requires attending to the other person's heart.

Hearing a heart drop is an art we must lovingly cultivate. It can lead to the most wonderful times of encouragement as we make it our habit to listen and to love.