Quotes About Empathy

Even the most blatant assholes seemed to function in a state of grace when confronted with the brutal loss of a loved one. They moved through the world differently than other people. When they looked at you, you had the feeling that they were really seeing you. Their entire universe was just this one thing, this one event, this one loss. They seemed, for a few weeks, to have things in perspective. Then the inconsequential shit of their lives would start to seep back in.

I love the quote: "No one else is you, and that is your superpower." It's what I sign in my books for readers because it completely sums up what I believe about myself and how I relate to others: We are all unique, worthy, and bring something to the table. So there is room for everyone to eat. No one should ever be turned away.

My advice for a broken heart: feel it, grieve it, take it one day at a time, then when you start to feel like you have accepted the truth of it, begin to do one thing to help yourself grow or to help someone else. I guarantee you will forget your pain when you realize how powerful you are and how powerful it is to love other people.

My mother told me that life isn't always about pleasing yourself and that sometimes you have to do things for the sole benefit of another human being. I completely agreed with her, but reminded her that that was what blow jobs were for.

I never say the things I really want to. If I did, I'd have no friends.

Es extraño lo fácilmente que perdemos contacto con lo que nos rodea, y lo vital que puede llegar a ser ese contacto.

I understand the harsh feelings and sentiments from my opponents and their supporters because I myself have been defeated twice in my political life in the past and I understand very well it is hard to accept your own failure.

You learn to read people by the way they act ... When people shy away from Doug, I think, Oh, they have so much to learn. You see, the disabled person has no problem interacting with them. They're the ones with the problem.

Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

You cannot love or hate another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

She put her head down on Libby's lap, and stared up at her eyes – which stared back down at her with a worried expression. "Hang in there, May. There's some blood, but it's not that bad. You're going to be fine." She grinned. "I'm already fine. Everything is.

No matter how bad your day, how terrible your choices, how ridiculous your risks, a dog would never tell you how stupid you were.

it is not really the difference the oppressor fears so much as the similarity. He fears he will discover in himself the same aches, the same longings as those of the people he has shit on... . He fears he will have to change his life once he has seen himself in the bodies of the people he has called different.

Listen with your heart, listen to your inner voice of wisdom, listen to your dreams. You know what is right for you.

Life's too short to not forgive those who hurt us. I trust you to do what's right. Right by your own heart.…Forgiveness sets you free.

I managed to persevere partly because not everyone responded with that stare; there was enthusiasm as well. And I was struck that no one responded with bored indifference. The topic was clearly hot—too hot for some people to handle, heartwarming to others.

You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love.

Let yourself be gutted. Let it open you. Start here.

But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.

Books] were the world I could lose myself in when the one I was actually living in became too lonely or harsh or difficult to bear.

We like to pretend that our generous impulses come naturally. But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first. It's the reason... we have to get burned before we understand the power of fire; the reason our most meaningful relationships are so often those that continued beyond the very juncture at which they came the closest to ending.

In your twenties you're becoming who you're going to be and so you might as well not be an asshole.

Be about ten times more magnanimous than you believe yourself capable of. Your life will be a hundred times better for it.

There is no cure except to live the hell out of our lives, to take it apart, to put it back together, to dig it all up, and then fill the hole. To help ourselves and one another to the best of our abilities. To believe everything entirely, while also calling bullshit for what it is.