Quotes About Empathy

So many of us are living out the unlived lives of our mothers.

Women have to learn how to talk as much as we listen. Men have to learn how to listen as much as they talk.

I'm not sure we can understand another country if we don't understand our own.

The first step toward speaking for others is speaking for ourselves.

If you do anything people care about, people will take care of you.

The purpose of ass-kicking is not that your ass gets kicked at the right time or for the right reason," she often explained. "It's to keep your ass sensitive.

Anybody can be with you when you're right, but only friends are with you when you mess up.

As always, self-esteem had created an ability to be generous.

Many are looking for the right person. Too few are trying to be the right person.

Perhaps we'll only be fully at ease with ourselves when we can appreciate scars as symbols of experience, often experiences that other women share, and see our bodies as unique chapters in a shared story.

We learn from difference, not from sameness.

people in the same room understand and empathize with each other in a way that isn't possible on the page or screen.

a crucial purpose of birth families is to make sure we know, value, and even love people we don't agree with.

I'm energized by listening to people's stories and trying to figure out shared solutions.

ANYBODY CAN BE WITH YOU when you're right, but only friends are with you when you mess up. Many

She acquired a lifetime aversion to the phrases bless your heart and poor dears.

The ultimate in parallel thinking is the Golden Rule—providing it is read both ways. The traditional sequence assumes a healthy self-esteem and asks for empathy: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." But for many people whose self-esteem has been suppressed, the revolution lies in reversing it: Do unto yourself as you would do unto others.

People before paper; stories before statistics.

learned: people in the same room understand and empathize with each other in a way that isn't possible on the page or screen.

Learning to accept and even love difference, as she pointed out, is important for the future of the human race. There is great comfort in realizing that differences within a family have an important purpose.

I was surprised to find myself in tears. Because these women had trusted me to help as a writer, I began to see a way of bringing together two things - writing and activism - that until then had torn me apart in everyday life.

Love is wanting what's best for the other person. Romance is wanting the other person.

wisdom they taught me: If you want people to listen to you, you have to listen to them. If you hope people will change how they live, you have to know how they live. If you want people to see you, you have to sit down with them eye-to-eye.

The older I get, the more intensely I feel about the world around me.