Quotes About Empathy

A large part of altruism, even when it is perfectly honest, is grounded upon the fact that it is uncomfortable to have unhappy people about one

When push comes to shove we can afford to lose an arm or a leg, but I am operating on peoples thoughts and feelings... and if something goes wrong I can destroy that persons character... forever.

You might expect that seeing so much pain and suffering might help you keep your own difficulties in perspective but, alas, it does not.

Anxious and angry relatives are a burden all doctors must bear, but having been one myself was an important part of my medical education.

It's the professional shame that hurts the most,' I said to him. I wheeled my bike as we walked along Fleet Street. 'Vanity really. As a neurosurgeon you have to come to terms with ruining people's lives and with making mistakes. But one still feels terrible about it and how much it will cost.

We laughed together for a long time. When we had first met, her eyes were dull with pain-killing drugs and if she tried to talk, her face would contort with agonizing pain. I thought how radiantly beautiful she now looked. She stood up to leave and went to the door but then came back and kissed me. `I hope I never see you again,' she said. `I quite understand,' I replied.

Love, I reminded my trainees, can be very selfish.

Just as it is irresistible to save a life, it is also very difficult to tell somebody that I cannot save them

How are you feeling?' I asked. 'Fine,' he replied with a tired smile. 'Well done!' I replied, as I think patients need to be congratulated for their surviving just as much as the surgeons should be congratulated for doing their job well. 'It's

We lauhed together for a long time. When we had first met, her eyes were dull with pain-killing drugs and if she tried to talk, her face would contort with agonizing pain. I thought how radiantly beautiful she now looked. She stood up to leave and went to the door but then came back and kissed me. `I hope I never see you again,' she said. `I quite understand,' I replied.

Patients become objects of fear as well as of sympathy. It is much easier to feel compassion for other people if you are not responsible for what happens to them

My wife and I spent the next few weeks in that strange world one enters when you fear for your child's life – the outside world, the real world, becomes a ghost world, and the people in it remote and indistinct. The only reality is intense fear, a fear driven by helpless, overwhelming love.

It was miserable work, with little reward, and I learned much about the limitations of human kindness, and in particular my own.

The tragedy of it is that nobody sees the look of desperation on my face. Thousands and thousands of us, and we're passing one another without a look of recognition.

The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself. All that you despise, all that you loathe, all that you reject, all that you condemn and seek to convert by punishment springs from you.

The only thing we never get enough of is love and the only thing we never give enough of is love.

To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were only capable of staying awake long enough to let the idea soak in.

What we all hope in reaching for a book, is to meet a man of our own heart, to experience tragedies and delights which we ourselves lack the courage to invite, to dream dreams which will render life more hallucinating, perhaps also to discover a philosophy of life which will make us more adequate in meeting the trials and ordeals which beset us. To merely add to our store of knowledge or improve our culture, whatever that may mean, seems worthless to me.

The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough of is love.

If you want to understand the difference between a network and a community, ask your Facebook friends to help paint your house. Networks connect; communities care.

Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.

People are learning to feel more comfortable hearing one another's dreams. It used to be that if you told a dream in public, someone had to make a joke to relieve the tension introduced by that alternative reality.

Respect is not a one way street

Sometimes I would get invited to a party or to go out to dinner by one of them and I would decline. Part of me wanted to go, but those kind of outings always made me feel even more alienated than usual. Hearing them talk made me feel lonely and hateful at the same time. Lonely because I didn't fit in, never did. When I was reminded, it hurt. And hateful because it reaffirmed what I already knew, that I was alone and on the outside.