Quotes About Empathy

Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep," advised the apostle Paul (Romans 12:15), wise words that apply especially in times of crisis.

In a letter to his brother, C. S. Lewis mentioned that he prayed every night for the people he was most tempted to hate, with Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini heading the list. In another letter he wrote that as he prayed for them, he meditated on how his own cruelty might have blossomed into something like theirs. He remembered that Christ died for them as much as for him, and that he himself was not "so different from these ghastly creatures.

It makes a huge difference whether I treat a nonbeliever as someone who is wrong rather than as someone who is on the way but lost.

a suffering person needs: love, and not knowledge and wisdom.

For he loved her and he understood that a woman cannot always live as a man. He understood that she cannot always think as he thought, walk as he walked, breathe the air that he took in. She would always be a different being from him, listening to a different music, hearing a different sound, familiar with a different element.

I will learn to smile at my enemies.

It is not love that matters, Mistress Boy, it is what you choose to do with it. What'd you choose to do with yours?

I have to say that I am much less impressed by crucifixion now that I am in childbirth. It is really not possible that anything could hurt more than this. I grieve for the suffering of Our Lord, of course. But if He had tried a bad birth He would know what pain is.

when you love a man who is less than you dreamed, you have to make allowances for the difference between a real man and a dream. Sometimes you have to forgive him. Perhaps you even have to forgive him often. But forgiveness often comes with love.

Ill wishing is a curse on the woman who does it, as well as the one who receives it. When you put such words out in the world, they can overshoot-like an arrow. A curse can go beyond your target and harm another. A wise woman curses very sparingly. I would hope that you never curse at all. Bless you my daughter, and may you remain pure in heart and get your desires.

How can I bless you when you are cursed in your choice?

She knew that being a mortal woman is hard on the heart, hard on the feet.

He has such kind eyes." "Certainly he has eyes, but they do not have the power of emotion, only of sight.

I was near to delighted laughter because Katherine of Aragon was speaking out for the women of the country, for the good wives who should not be put aside just because their husbands had taken a fancy to another, for the women who walked the hard road between kitchen, bedroom, church and childbirth. For the women who deserved more than their husband's whim.

I knew that I was smiling her smile, that she was a dark mirror to me.

I developed a style of writing: first person, so that you are in someone's shoes, facing their dilemmas, and present tense, so that you have no historians' hindsight, you are in the then and there, not looking back.

Any triumph she has is halved if I am not there to see it. And anything that goes wrong for me, any slight or humiliation, she is quick to perceive and she would even be quick to revenge—oh!—but inside her heart is singing to know that I have taken a blow.

If I cannot be with my sister, then I don't want any bedfellow at all.

On ne pardonne pas à son ami ses erreurs, on ne les excuse pas non plus. On les comprend.

In the meantime, let's agree that what makes a problem big is simply that it's yours.

There are things we see with our eyes, sitting high and looking out. And there are things we see with our hearts, sitting still and looking in.

At this very moment, you may be saying to yourself that you have any number of admirable qualities. You are a loyal friend, a caring person, someone who is smart, dependable, fun to be around. That's wonderful, and I'm happy for you, but let me ask you this: are you being any of those things to yourself?

Ideal mental health, like freedom, exists for one person only if it exists for all people.

Go gently into the day. Honor your idealism, resist cynicism. Keep your heart open to the world, try and make the world better. Don't give up.