Quotes About Empathy

As a species, we can at times be dimwitted and cruel. But we're also capable of learning.

You have to be able to love members of your own species before you can branch out and apply that to other species.

We need to emphasize the more positive aspects of our species.

As a species, I think if we could be half as good as dogs, I think the world would be a much better place.

If you want to get into the shoes of someone, it's not just about seeing and hearing. It is also about what you touch and what you smell. Smell is so specific and so powerful. And this is the beauty of immersive theatre - it's something you cannot get in any other art form. I think this is the real future for theatre.

The more specific you are about a very general feeling of loneliness is actually how you connect with people.

I used to feel I was more French than anything, but I don't feel that way anymore. I really don't feel like I belong to a specific country, and it is so difficult for people to understand that.

My approach as an actor has always been the same, in that the greatest gift that you're ever going to have is your imagination because you're not going to have all life experiences. So you draw on things that are sort of close to it but you spend your time expanding on it or drawing something specific on whatever your situation is.

We all have that capacity to lose our humanity when circumstances force us to do so. It's not specific to people who live in Africa or Latin America or Asia. And equally, we are capable of regaining ourselves.

The longer I live the more convinced I become that one of the greatest honors we can confer on other people is to see them as they are, to recognize not only that they exist, but that they exist in specific ways and have specific realities.

I don't know the first real thing about the dating game. I don't know how to talk to a specific person and connect. I just think you have to go to person by person and do the best you can with people in general.

Some Indians will come up and say that a story reminded them of something very specific to their experience. Which may or may not be the case for non-Indians.

That's what I love about songwriting - that you can write something about your own experiences and think it's completely specific to you, and then people can take away a completely different meaning for themselves. I really love that. I think you've been successful at writing a song when it has a larger life than yourself.

My films are very rooted in specific people's point of view. Some film-makers give a more global point of view, like God looking down at the characters.

I have specific playlists for different books and characters. So, I need to have those with me. It helps me get into the mindset of the book.

There is something very easy about women's friendships that you don't see as often with men. We all know examples of this, when women will just call each other up or drop a line, not with anything specific to say.

I've found that the common humanity of people is the most relatable thing, and even if your stories are very specific about a different place, if you have a relatable core of humanity, people will go along with it.

For my characters, it's important to get really specific about what they listen to. Because it affects how they move in the world.

Something that happens to me is that I'll write a play specifically from my own experience, and then I'll inevitably be told that I'm being tunnel-visioned about it. People always ask, 'What about that other race? Or discrimination toward those people?'

To be successful, it is imperative that you not only know the organizations you work with, but more specifically, you have to know the actual people you work with within these organizations, understand what their personal goals and motivations are. In short, to be successful, you need to humanize your clients.

I think specifically because of the character that I played, people are very connected to her. I used to get letters from young gay and lesbian and trans-gendered kids saying, 'I didn't kill myself because of Buffy'.

To my mind, the education of children - girl children, specifically - is what really creates an enlightened society. It creates a liberal society.

I'm trying to appeal to the disenfranchised everybody, not just specifically gay.

Look, I think if you talk down to a kid or aim specifically at a kid, most kids aren't gonna like it, really, because most kids can feel when you are being patronizing.