Quotes About Empathy

idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who arose from other evolutionary paths

Any animal is willing to kill in order to save itself.' 'Any animal is willing to kill the Other,' said Ender. 'But the higher beings include more and more living things within their self-story, until at last there is no Other. Until the needs of others are more important than any private desires. The highest beings of all are the ones who are willing to pay any personal cost for the good of those who need them.

You treated me the way you like to be treated when you grieve, and now I'm treating you the way I like to be treated. We prescribe our own medicine for each other.

If you can understand why he's biting and remove the conditions that make him bite, sometimes that can solve the problem as well. The dog isn't dead. He isn't even your enemy.

We are like you; the thought pressed into his mind. We did not mean to murder, and when we understood, we never came again. We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams. How were we to know? We could live with you in peace. Believe us, believe us, believe us.

I'll carry you,' said Ender, 'I'll go from world to world until I find a time and a place where you can come awake in safety. And I'll tell your story to my people, so that perhaps in time they can forgive you, too. The way that you've forgiven me.

I speak to everyone in the language they understand," said Ender. "That isn't being slick. It's being clear.

And there it was. The moment a man answered her right back instead of getting his dander up, why, she flashed a smile fit to charm the warts off a toad.

How could she have missed it? It was her knack, to see what people intended, what they were about to do. Yet she saw no further than his smile the first time they met, saw nothing but his genuine love and sympathy and concern for her. How could her knack have failed her?

Shy people might take their doses of companionship like an ill-tasting medicine, but they need it, and they suffer a thousand maladies, physical and mental, if they don't have it.

Speakers for the dead apparently have an almost pathological reliance on the idea that people behave better when they know more.

In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them—

He's a pig," said Shen. Ender shrugged. "On the whole, pigs aren't so bad.

Ezekiel wanted to cry and he wanted to scream. Cry because he couldn't believe how painful all of this must have been, how sad and lonely Beth must have been. And scream because he never had a clue about the deep pain in Beth's life.

Nuestra misión es salvar el mundo, no curar corazones heridos. Eres demasiado compasivo.

Novinha could not bear the prospect of company, of kindness, of people trying to console her.

When you really know somebody, you can't hate them.' 'Or maybe it's just that you can't really know them until you stop hating them.

For he loved her, as you can only love someone who is an echo of yourself at your time of deepest sorrow.

The touch of kindness in this frightening place was enough to push someone over the edge into tears.

He wasn't telling her what the gods were, he was telling her what goodness was. To want other people to grow. To want other people to have all the good things that you have. And to spare them the bad things if you can. That was goodness.

En el momento en que entiendo verdaderamente a mi enemigo, en el momento en que le entiendo lo suficientemente bien como para derrotarle, entonces, en ese preciso instante, también le quiero. Creo que es imposible entender realmente a alguien, saber lo que quere, saber lo que cree, y no amarle como se ama a sí mismo.

I suspect that this is the true tragedy of the human condition. The more closely we're involved with other people, the more isolated and misunderstood we feel. Because nobody can possible know us, and we can't possible know anybody, not even ourselves. Wakers, p 427/566

Why am I doing this? What does this have to do with being a good commander, making one boy the target of all the others? Just because they did it to me, why should I do it to him? Ender wanted to undo his taunting of the boy, wanted to tell the others that the little one needed his help and friendship more than anything else. But of course Ender couldn't do that. Not on the first day. On the first day even his mistakes had to look like part of a brilliant plan.

Quara's need was and is so great that a person like me could be swallowed up in it a dozen times over. I had problems of my own then. Don't condemn me because I wrote her off. Her barrel of misery has depth enough to hold a thousand bushels of happiness.