Quotes About Empathy

Progress depends on our brain. The most important part of our brain, that which is neocortical, must be used to help others and not just to make discoveries.

My mother was a professional sick person; she took a lot of pain pills. There are many people like that. It's just how they are used to getting attention. I always remember she's the daughter of alcoholics who'd leave her alone at Christmas time.

I never like being touched, ever. People used to say I held my breath when they were hugging me. I still do.

Comedy is a tool to be used so that people can relate to each other.

When I was in school with my friends and stuff, you always used to put yourself in the situation of footballers of the time and pretend to be them.

I used to have to borrow textbooks from my mate in another class. When he was away I'd have no textbooks and the teacher would say, 'Anh, you have to go to detention.' I didn't want to tell her my mum didn't have the money.

Some people are like wheelbarrows; useful only when pushed, and very easily upset. The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.

It's useful to go out of this world and see it from the perspective of another one.

People complain not because something sucks. People complain because they're looking for empathy and to feel connected with those around them. Unfortunately, complaining is maybe the least useful way to connect with other human beings.

Taught to regard a part of our own Species in the most abject and contemptible Degree below us, we lose that Idea of the dignity of Man which the Hand of Nature had implanted in us, for great and useful purposes.

Sometimes I'm just giving, and giving to people who aren't always deserving. But I've learned to listen and approach people without judgment. I've had so many conversations with so many different kinds of people - it's opened my heart, which is useful when I'm writing songs.

Self-pity is never useful. It tends to distort like a fun-house mirror.

When I was in the private sector, I found it immensely useful to go out and talk to customers and co-workers.

Training to be a therapist teaches you to shut up and listen, and that is certainly useful as a writer.

Over four or five years, I did six albums with three people: John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, and Patti Smith. I felt that if I could care as much about their music as they did, I could be useful to them. I really cared about their music and their lives.

Fiction is a particular kind of rhetoric, a way of thinking that I think can be useful in your life. It asks you to image the world through someone else's eyes, and it allows you to try to empathize with situations that you haven't actually experienced.

I'm creating art that can be healing. Art that can make you feel like you're not alone, like you're not an outsider. Art that is useful.

The Anti-Slavery public have generously responded to our appeal, and sent the means to enable us to fit them out well, to pay their passages, supply them with many useful articles and give the Missionaries money to sustain themselves for a while.

I think the gay - the gay/straight alliances in the school are very useful as far as creating understanding among kids and so kids aren't necessarily so stigmatized or demonized for being who they really are.

My idea of art is, you write something that makes people feel so strongly that they get some conviction about who they want to be or what they want to do. It's morally useful not in a political way, but it makes your heart bigger; it's emotionally and spiritually empowering.

I'm always amazed at how much people 'get' when I'm performing overseas. I've never had to change my act on my international shows; I just make sure that I've taken some time to get to know the people in those countries before I perform. That's been really useful.

Cancer is a growth hormone for empathy, and empathy makes us useful to each other in ways we were not, could not have been, before.

I used to assume no one would care, but I do think now I've written songs that are useful to people having dark hours.

We get so caught up in doing everything for ourselves, including inspiring ourselves, that it's exhausting and not at all useful. Take a look around you. Look at your friends. Open up to your friends and take in the caring and good intentions they hold toward you.