Quotes About Empathy

we are all waiting for the luminous hands that will reach for us in the night, the eyes that will witness our pain, the voice that will whisper the possibility of a different truth.

Here's to looking every new mother in the eye, not just smiling at the baby, and asking her "How are YOU?" Here's to listening for her answer.

When you enter your next relationship, you become the person you split up with.

When someone genuinely laughs with you, it's proof that you share a certain internal space. And that's not so lonely after all.

Baldwin says that suffering "may be the only equality we have," and that all pain is real and not easily quantified or measured.

Fear makes people lawless. If indifference is hate's opposite, then compassion is fear's.

There are too few words for who and what human beings are to each other. Language is a territory still mostly uncharted. We are the cartographers, every day, still mapping the human heart.

And yet. It is not easy, living in the shadow of someone's Tragic Illness, so that everything you do seems insubstantial by comparison. Other people in the world would have to agree that this is true.

Lately, I've been a little sad that I'm not a gay man.

Forgive someone today. Especially if that someone is you.

Experience is a master teacher, even when it's not our own.

Never underestimate the lingering effects of a dash of spontaneous comfort.

People across the earth are aching to serve as your ambassadors in one form or another. Let them.

Opportunity to suspend disbelief is often why we watch movies. The stories and images touch us and shift perspectives in ways we may not allow in our daily lives. As readily as you check your "this isn't real" attitude at the ticket counter – when transformers are defending earth against aliens and 21st century vampires frolic by daylight – on the big screen of your heart and mind train for, run and celebrate finishing your first marathon.

Not only is it not our business to change others, but it's also harmful to relationships to try to do so. Ideas are just not worth the price paid in love lost. Love is more important than any conditioned idea or belief, but if you take your conditioning more seriously than love, you will lose love. The other person will withhold love from you because it will be too painful for him or her to love you.

That judgments close hearts should be pretty obvious. Judgments come from a closed heart, so naturally they also cause others to close their hearts. Judgments are a perfect example of an internal reality, or climate, determining one's external reality. When you openly judge others, you will be judged in return, as predictably as the night follows the day.

antidote to judgment is accepting people the way they are and not imposing our desires and expectations on them. Our

Nothing is ever lost in choosing love. Your judgments never worked anyway. They only created anger, hurt, and separation. When you see the truth of this, it becomes much easier to choose love over judgment.

We know love by its fruits. Love gives: It listens, it caresses, it nourishes, it nurtures. It does whatever is needed of it.

It doesn't take the partner's words and actions personally.

Love thrives when we accept others as they are, while allowing them to grow, develop, and be as they are meant to be. This is the kind of environment that we, as parents, would hope to provide our children. Being there for others, supporting their growth, supporting them in their trials, and celebrating life with them is a great service to others.

When two people love each other, they don't look at each other, they look in the same direction.

After spending time with the rescued turkeys at Farm Sanctuary's shelter and seeing how similar they are to my furry companion animals at home, I knew I needed to do everything in my power to protect these friendly and curious birds from the daily pain and suffering they endure on factory farms.

In any case, if they don't do it to you, they do it to someone else...if you let them do it to others, you become an accomplice, intentionally or not