Quotes About Empathy

Solidarity is an attitude of resistance, I suppose, or it should be.

When I meet people who say - which they do all of the time - 'I must just tell you, my great aunt had cancer of the elbow and the doctors gave her 10 seconds to live, but last I heard she was climbing Mount Everest ' and so forth, I switch off quite early.

To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?

These books have not made George nobler or better or more truly wise. It is just that he likes listening to their voices, the one or the other, acording to his mood. He misuses them quite ruthlessly - despite the respectful way he has to talk about them in public - to put him to bed, to take his mind off the hands of the clock, to relax the nagging of his pyloric spasm, to gossip him out of his melancholy, to trigger the conditioned reflexes of his colon.

The only way to make lasting change is to enlighten humans that they should treat all creatures with respect. They shouldn't eat them, steal their skin and fur, force them to do tricks for entertainment, and so on.

And he who is forever talking about enemies / Is himself the enemy!

Patience and kindness don't show up on demand; they're disciplines that require constant practice, and there is no better boot camp for learning those skills than hitching your survival to your ability to discern—and respect—the needs of another creature

Let us live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry," Mark Twain

True heroism, as the ancients understood, isn't about strength, or boldness, or even courage. It's about compassion.

Other runners try to disassociate from fatigue by blasting iPods or imagining the roar of the crowd in Olympic Stadium, but Scott had a simpler method: it's easy to get outside yourself when you're thinking about someone else.

Heroes aren't perfect; with a god as one parent and a mortal as the other, they're perpetually teetering between two destinies. What tips them toward greatness is a sidekick, a human connection who helps turn the spigot on the power of compassion. Empathy, the Greeks believed, was a source of strength, not softness; the more you recognized yourself in others and connected with their distress, the more endurance, wisdom, cunning, and determination you could tap into.

Talkers aren't listeners

it's easy to get outside yourself when you're thinking about someone else.*

Empathy, the Greeks believed, was a source of strength, not softness; the more you recognized yourself in others and connected with their distress, the more endurance, wisdom, cunning, and determination you could tap into.

Once you learn to think like another creature, you can anticipate what it will do and react before it ever acts. If that sounds a little Hollywood, then you've seen your share of movies about impossibly clairvoyant FBI profilers who can "see with the eyes of the killer." But out there on the Kalahari plains, mind-throwing was a very real and potentially deadly talent.

I put my arms around you," she would tell Michael Stankewicz from the witness stand on the day he was sentenced. "To comfort you.

Zatopek found a way to run so that when he won, even other teams were delighted.

Heroes care. True heroism, as the ancients understood, isn't about strength, or boldness, or even courage. It's about compassion.

Scott was a hero for a very different reason among back-of-the-packers too slow to see him in action. After winning a hundred-mile race, Scott would be desperate for a hot shower and cool sheets. But instead of leaving, he'd wrap himself in a sleeping bag and stand vigil by the finish line. When day broke the next morning, Scott would still be there, cheering hoarsely, letting that last, persistent runner know he wasn't alone.

There is only one rule for being a good talker - learn to listen.

No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversations as a dog does

One of the penalties of being a human being is other human beings

nessuno come un cane sa apprezzare la straordinarietà della tua conversazione.

The people in books become more real to you than any one in actual life.