Quotes About Empathy

With twice his wits, she had to see things through his eyes—one of the tragedies of married life.

Non era stato necessario che parlassero. Avevano pensato le stesse cose e lui aveva risposto senza che lei dovesse chiedere nulla. Era là in piedi e stendeva le mani su tutta la debolezza e la sofferenza dell'umanità; le parve che esaminasse, con tolleranza e compassione, il loro destino finale.

She felt somehow very like him—the young man who had killed himself.

With equal complacence she saw his misery, condoned his meanness, and acquiesced in his torture.

Do not, in your affluence and plenty,' you seem to say, 'pass me by.' 'Stop,' you say. 'Ask me what I suffer.' Let me then create you. (You have done as much for me.)

Seduti per terra parlarono - lui e Clarissa. Senza nessuno sforzo entravano e uscivano l'uno dalla mente dell'altra.

pensé en lo desagradable que era que le dejaran a uno fuera; y pensé que quizás era peor que le encerraran a uno dentro;

We do not know our own souls, let alone the souls of others. Human beings do not go hand in hand the whole stretch of the way. There is a virgin forest in each; a snowfield where even the print of birds' feet is unknown. Here we go alone, and like it better so. Always to have sympathy, always to be accompanied, always to be understood would be intolerable

o que podemos supor que fazem as mulheres quando buscam a companhia das outras?

How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it is liking one felt, or disliking?

The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.

They alone live, who live for others.

Very young, I was not able to find myself interesting without intelligent response. I required the company of minds attuned to my own, but no one around gave me back the words I needed to hear.

As I saw myself moving ever farther toward the social margin, nothing healed me of a sore and angry heart like a walk through the city. To see in the street the fifty different ways people struggle to remain human—the variety and inventiveness of survival techniques—was to feel the pressure relieved, the overflow draining off. I felt in my nerve endings the common refusal to go under.

The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or the girl in the book, but with the mind that conceived and composed that book.

Yes, I need you, my fairy-tale. Because you are the only person I can talk with about the shade of a cloud, about the song of a thought — and about how, when I went out to work today and looked a tall sunflower in the face, it smiled at me with all of its seeds.

Suddenly for no earthly reason I felt immensely sorry for him and longed to say something real, something with wings and a heart, but the birds I wanted settled on my shoulders and head only later when I was alone and not in need of words.

Beauty plus pity-that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the individual.

Solitude was corrupting me. I needed company and care.

When you laugh, I want to transform the entire world so it will mirror you.

You are the only person I can talk with about the shade of a cloud, about the song of a thought...

Emphatically, no killers are we. Poets never kill.

A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle even though we must keep a little aloof, a little detached when reading.

The softness and fragility of baby animals caused us the same intense pain. She wanted to be a nurse in some famished Asiatic country; I wanted to be a famous spy.