Quotes About Empathy

The mournfulness felt like a hand pressing on my chest.

A real selfish love like yours old pal Is something I shall never know again And I must always be a better man Because you loved me greatly, Rin Tin Tin.

This is why I wanted to write this book, to tell about a place I love that doesn't belong to me but feels like it is mine, and how that feels like a marvelous and exceptional thing. All the things that are wrong in the world seems conquered by a library's simple unspoken promise: Here is my story, please listen; here I am, please tell me your story.

You don't need to take a book off a shelf to know there is a voice inside that is waiting to speak to you, and behind that was someone who truly believed that if he or she spoke, someone would listen.

All the things that are wrong in the world seem conquered by a library's simple unspoken promise: Here I am, please tell me your story; here is my story, please listen.

All the things that are wrong in the world seem conquered by a library's simple unspoken promise: Here I am, please tell me your story; here is my story, please listen.

Compassion occurs when we open our feelings to the feelings of another person, without judgement, pity, or a need to fix. It is an act of holding the fullness of feelings of another in our awareness and feeling suffering or joy with him or her; without becoming lost in the feeling.

Deep, quiet listening is a great gift.

When people are suffering, they're not open to hearing horror stories about others with similar maladies. There is less capacity for compassion at such moments.

Lucky discovered that laughing was like crying in the sense that sometimes you cannot stop. And it's a catching disease, because when another person is spurting and gasping it makes you start again even after you have taken deep gulps of air and stopped looking at the other laughing person.

real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world

When you are filled with fear, anxiety, or other difficult emotions, the first thing you should always do is make friends with them.

If you've ever wished for a friend who would love you as you are, appreciate your genius, and make space for your foibles, welcome you when you're funny and shiny and when you're a complete mess—well, I can introduce you to this person. Rather, your meditation practice can. He or she has been there the whole time. You are the one you've been waiting for, as they say.

When I think my actions will benefit others and not just myself, I find courage where I thought I had none. Holding others in my heart brings an uplifted quality to my actions, and I feel that I am being wise.

brilliant life is not about being untouched by sorrow but has more to do with relaxing and allowing the world to touch you. It's way braver to open yourself to the world than to wall yourself off from it.

It starts with the realization that a broken heart is nothing to be ashamed of. It is an altered state, an experience of sacred openness.

So what is this responsiveness? Here's a definition which you may find useful: 1. Being able to notice, pay attention to, reflect on, soothe and express our own emotions. 2. Being able to notice, pay attention to, reflect on, soothe and respond to a partner's emotions. 3. Being able to reflect on and discuss the interaction between 1 and 2. 4. Being able to do all the above even when a partner can't, won't or doesn't want to.

No one can make us feel anything. It's up to us to feel whatever we feel.

That is really the direction in spiritual direction, as I understand it. As gently as possible, I try to say, It seems as though the light is coming from over there," and I point to it, hoping that I don't point in such a way that I block the person's view.

When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.

I think I'm an actor because I have very strong imagination and empathy. I never studied acting, but those two qualities are exactly the qualities that make for an activist.

The mother needs mothering too.

Even if AI surpasses us intellectually, we still may stand out in a crucial dimension: it feels like something to be us.

There is something within us that responds deeply to people who level with us.