Quotes About Empathy

When you added dialogue to your piece, I really understood how Amy [the character] felt." This is not so much praise as a causal statement—you did this [added dialogue], with this consequence [I understood how the character felt]. Causal process statements are at the heart of building agency.

Third, by not judging it as good or otherwise, the teacher shows that judging is not what happens in this class. Instead, we think about how and why people do things.

Bila je ?ovekoljubiva.

Cuanto más me doy cuenta de lo mucho que tengo en común con todos, tanto menos solidario me siento con uno determinado.

Vielleicht ist ein Schriftsteller in vielem weltfremd. Aber die menschliche Seele, für die ist seine manchmal kindliche Empfindlichkeit das große Auge" -Handke (Briefwechsel mit Unseld)

The trouble with great literature is that any asshole can identify with it.

Nepakeliama b?ti su kuo nors susipykus. Staiga tas kitas tampa bevardžiu, kažkokiu dariniu, jo veidas pasitraukia ? šeš?l?, pasidaro neryškus, iškreiptas, ir mes tegalime ? j? skubotai žvilgtel?ti, iš apa?ios, tarsi pel?. ?sigij? prieš?, mes imame bjaur?tis patys savimi. Ir vis tiek visada tur?jome prieš?.

Who's calling? Don't insult me like that, the voice says. I stop. Was I just insulting?

Usually I said nothing at all; as a waiguoren I was often most comfortable when I was listening.

Do you have places like this in your country? Wang Yumei asked. I tried to imagine having a reunion with my friends in America and picking up a random foreigner and spending the day with him, simply out of curiosity and kindness. No,...

Wang Chaosu shouted everything at me, the way many Americans do when they meet foreigners with bad English.

I felt a sense of brotherhood with anybody who peddled stories... A crowd had gathered around one man who sold pamphlets. He was in his early twenties, and you could tell from his appearance - dark skin, dirty collar, cheap blue suit - that he was a migrant. But he spoke beautifully, holding the crowd with his words... He sold pamphlets not because he needed to, but because the pamphlets deserved to be sold.

Asking for sympathy is just another way of asking for permission.

Love suffers far more for the pains of the beloved than for its own pains.

The more you treat someone you hate as if you loved them, the more you will find yourself loving them.

We too can love with the will even when we do not have loving emotions or feelings. We make this distinction toward ourselves quite easily, so we should be able to do it toward others too when necessary.

But to observe our neighbor's faults with the intention of looking down upon them or of detracting them . . . is sinful.

But all true effort to help begins with self-humiliation: the helper must first humble himself under him he would help, and therewith must understand that to help does not mean to be a sovereign but to be a servant, that to help does not mean to be ambitious but to be patient, that to help means to endure for the time being the imputation that one is in the wrong and does not understand what the other understands.

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.

Suffering together builds togetherness, and if togetherness is more important for us and for our joy than freedom from suffering is, then God is good to allow this suffering.

Love works; and if we do not see the works of love (in places where they obviously ought to be) then we can be sure that love is not present.

Do we meet each person curious about the miracle of a human being that we are about to connect with? Or do we meet a poor person that we are about to help?

Until you do the inner work of learning how to see with "your eyes and your heart open," as Kabat-Zinn puts it, deep problems will persist.

For example,when a conflict surfaces in a dialogue people are likely to realize that there is a tension, but the tension arises, literally, from our thoughts. People will say, "It is our thoughts and the way we hold on to them that are in conflict, not us.