Quotes About Empathy

Think too of all who suffer as if you shared their pain. HEBREWS 13:3

God's gifts are best used when we give them away in serving those who have less.

The role of the doctor, nurse, social worker, minister, or loving friend is simply this: to keep the nutcracker of circumstances from destroying, and to help the sufferer see that even the worst hardships open up the potential for growth and development.

Only forgiveness frees us from the injustice of others.

Those who suffer rest their security not on things, which often cannot be enjoyed and may soon be taken away, but rather on people.

The phrase "the body of Christ," expresses well what we are called to do: to represent in flesh what Christ is like, especially to those in need. The

When you forgive someone, you slice away the wrong from the person who did it. You disengage that person from his hurtful act.

Breaking the cycle of ungrace means taking the initiative.

Forgiveness has its own extraordinary power which reaches beyond law and beyond justice.

One of the most important things we can do for a suffering person is to restore a sense of meaning or significance to the experience.

Then the question becomes, "How do we treat sinners?

the healthiest body is the one that feels the pain of its weakest parts. In

When I ask, "Tell me the first word that comes to your mind when I say Christian," not one time has someone suggested the word love. Yet without question that is the proper biblical answer.

the sound of a man forgiving.

Despite a hundred sermons on forgiveness, we do not forgive easily, nor find ourselves easily forgiven.

persons with AIDS, and they hear a very clear message from the church: "You get no sympathy from me. You deserve your suffering as God's punishment. Keep away." I cannot think of a more terrifying disease than AIDS, or one that provokes a less compassionate response.

The first step in helping a suffering person (or in accepting our own pain) is to acknowledge that pain is valid, and worthy of a sympathetic response.

Jesus did not identify the person with his sin, but rather saw in this sin something alien, something that really did not belong to him, something that merely chained and mastered him and from which he would free him and bring him back to his real self.

It takes no grace to relate to someone who looks, thinks, and acts just like me.

Forgiveness breaks the cycle of blame and loosens the stranglehold of guilt. It accomplishes these two things through a remarkable linkage, placing the forgiver on the same side as the party who did the wrong.

Jesus was able to love men because he loved them right through the layer of mud.

He who cannot forgive another breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself. GEORGE HERBERT

Nothing else — no learned "how-to" program, no expensive gift — is worth more to the sufferer than the comfortable assurance of your physical presence.

the issue is not whether I agree with someone but rather how I treat someone with whom I profoundly disagree.