Quotes About Empathy

One dictum I had learned on the battlefields of France in a far distant war: You cannot save the world, but you might save the man in front of you, if you work fast enough.

Screwed-up people settle fights through violence. Screwed-up people start wars that could kill millions. Normal people settle fights through cookies, cakes, and pies. Normal people are fat.

By bringing shame to a person, how could one expect to make him a better man?

I don't have to agree with everything you say, but I should attempt at least to understand it, for the opposite of mutual understanding is, quite simply, war.

We are all victims of war, and we all count.

You're not alone, are you? Because I'm here

I had grown up in a humanist atmosphere, and war to me was never anything but horror, mutilation and senseless destruction, and I knew that many great and wise people felt the same way about it.

Nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active outpouring of one's whole being into the being of another.

Nothing should be left to an invaded people except their eyes for weeping.

How can one not speak about war, poverty, and inequality when people who suffer from these afflictions don't have a voice to speak?

War ends only when people love each other.

Wars aren't stopped by fighting wars, any more than you can fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. You fight violence with nonviolence.

In violence, we forget who we are

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

Care for him who shall have borne the battle

Inflict not on an enemy every injury in your power, for he may afterwards become your friend.

I would like my book to give people insight to the war before and after, but I don't think anyone could read my book and suddenly make up her mind about the war. I want to write for everybody.

Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without himself.

It is not right to exult over slain men.

Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" your neighbor; act as if you did.

Having a spine is overrated. If everybody squealed and ran away, there'd be no more wars.

Of course after the fight you want to make sure that you're okay and so is the other guy, it's a brotherhood in there, so you want to make sure everyone is okay after the war is over.

Rather than turning away from the staggering scale and depth of misery caused by war, we must strive to develop our capacity to empathize and feel the sufferings of others.

It would be a fine thing if war could be conducted as a game where no lives were lost. At the end of a battle combatants could meet [...] and drink and talk.