Quotes About Empathy

think to have a successful marriage, you need two very good forgivers.

The things that bother us most about others—our pet peeves—also point toward falsity in our own self. The speck that bothers me in the life of someone else is almost always the log in my own eye (Matthew 7:3).

Love always involves not just saying yes to someone but also saying no to self. The life of love is a life of death to the kingdom of self.

It is an example of what films can do, how they can slip past your defenses and really break your heart.

The trouble with people is they don't understand people.

He told himself she wasn't really such a bad person, she was just a pest, she was sticky, there was something misplaced in her make-up, something that kept her from fading clear of people when they wanted to be in the clear.

When I read, the words on the page replace the voice in my head and I cease, for a little while, to be me, or at least to be so painfully aware of being me.

Women everywhere are always expected to continually imagine what one situation or another would look like from a male point of view. Men are almost never expected to do the same for women. So deeply internalized is this pattern of behavior that many men react to any suggestion that they might do otherwise as if it were itself an act of violence.

In short, [Native Americans] say, the name of savages, which we bestow upon them, would fit ourselves better, since there is nothing in our actions that bears an appearance of wisdom.

being truly human meant refusing to make such calculations

If mutual aid, social co-operation, civic activism, hospitality or simply caring for others are the kind of things that really go to make civilizations, then this true history of civilization is only just starting to be written.

Others noted the 'Indian's' reluctance ever to let anyone fall into a condition of poverty, hunger or destitution. It was not so much that they feared poverty themselves, but rather that they found life infinitely more pleasant in a society where no one else was in a position of abject misery

They will care about our business only to the extent that we care about their overall welfare.

You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you. -John Bunyan

It's not how much we give but how much we put into giving. -Mother Teresa

Als dat klopt, als je je echt tussen haakjes voelt, laat mij dan tenminste ook binnen. De rest van de wereld mag buiten blijven, laat de wereld maar de factor buiten de haakjes zijn waarmee wij binnen vermenigvuldigd worden.

She had not yet sensed the pea beneath the pile of mattresses, the pea that belonged to the little brown-skinned girl who used to make up stories to keep her soul pinned down inside her or, at times, to let it fly—stories whose most exciting element was the word "suddenly" at the beginning of every sentence and before each description: Suddenly, suddenly, her heart would leap when she whispered to herself, suddenly .

Remember that every person only lives for a short time, and you have to make that time pleasant for him.

How could she be feeling the very same streams that rushed around within him? She thought, as they overflowed and lapped inside her too. She had never felt the inside of another person this way.

Of course. And you said I was one of a kind, and that if I cried 'cause of them, then you see it upside down, and it's like I'm laughing 'cause of me.

And he, in his way, talked with her about everything, and shared with her everything, he thought would not be too painful for her, even though she was gladly willing to pay the pain levy, which was sometimes unbearable, only so that he would not for a moment stop the flow of his talk with her, so he would not filter or protect her or think twice.

Hoe zei jij dat ook alweer, over de wrede keuze: de woordeloosheid levend en levendig houden, of onder woorden brengen.

Dove sei? Come curi questo mal di cuore? So che soffri quanto me. Forse persino più di me, perchè in questo momento ti siamo entrambi contro.

Con le lacrime agli occhi, quel giorno mi hai chiesto che orologio avessi e io ho riso, dicendo che non era un particolare importante. Al che, immediatamente, hai risposto: "Tutto è importante, come fai a non capire che tutto quello che racconti è importante e prezioso per me? Tutti i tuoi particolari.