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Quotes About Empathy

When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All
~ Desmond Tutu
we choose to either walk the path of revenge and be bound to suffering, or take the path of forgiveness and be freed into healing.
~ Desmond Tutu
When we accept our own pain we can begin to see past it to the other person's woundedness. We can begin to consider that if we were in their shoes, if we stood inside their story, we might have done to others what they did to us.
~ Desmond Tutu
When we can accept both our humanity and the perpetrator's we can write a new story. One in which we are no longer cast as a victim, but a survivor, even perhaps a hero.
~ Desmond Tutu
What a profound scientific discovery that blacks, Coloreds (usually people of mixed race), and Indians were in fact human beings, who had the same concerns and anxieties and aspirations. They wanted a decent home, a good job, a safe environment for their families, good schools for their children, and almost none wanted to drive the whites into the sea. They just wanted their place in the sun. Everywhere else elections are
~ Desmond Tutu
The way I look at it, you should feel glad that Han found out about the bad thing. It's the only way to know if someone can love you— if they still love you even after they know about the bad thing. Or the twenty-eight bad things. All of it.
~ Diana Abu-Jaber
This is also a story about what a good thing it is to forgive— a relief to the one who did the bad thing, and a great relief to the one who gets to forgive!
~ Diana Abu-Jaber
Damaged children are all of the same tribe: I can look at any adult and recognize one instantly— we're everywhere. Lost childhood lingers like tribal scars— in an off-kilter smile or a look in the eye— there's always some sign.
~ Diana Abu-Jaber
No wonder he was so good with horses, I thought blearily, feeling his fingers rubbing gently behind my ears, listening to the soothing, incomprehensible speech. If I were a horse, I'd let him ride me anywhere.
~ Diana Gabaldon
Sassenach, I've been stabbed, bitten, slapped, and whipped since supper - which I didna get to finish. I dinna like to scare children an I dinna like to flog men, and I've had to do both. I've two hundred English camped three miles away, and no idea what to do about them. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm sore. If you've anything like womanly sympathy about ye, I could use a bit!
~ Diana Gabaldon
I gave you justice, it said, as I was taught it. And I gave you mercy , too, so far as I could. While I could not spare you pain and humiliation, I make you a gift of my own pains and humiliations, that yours might be easier to bear.
~ Diana Gabaldon
Thy life's journey lies along its own path, Ian," she said, "and I cannot share thy journey—but I can walk beside thee. And I will.
~ Diana Gabaldon
You cannot save the world, but you might save the man in front of you, if you work fast enough.
~ Diana Gabaldon
One dictum I had learned on the battlefields of France in a far distant war: You cannot save the world, but you might save the man in front of you, if you work fast enough.
~ Diana Gabaldon
I can stand a lot! But just because I can, does that mean I must? Do I have to bear everyone's weakness? Can I not have my own?
~ Diana Gabaldon
I would." He kissed the top of my head. "I saw Ian's face; it was like his own flesh was being torn, each time Jenny screamed." My arms were around him, stroking the ridged scars on his back. "I can bear pain, myself," he said softly, "but I couldna bear yours. That would take more strength than I have.
~ Diana Gabaldon
When you hold a child to your breast to nurse, the curve of the little head echoes exactly the curve of the breast it suckles, as though this new person truly mirrors the flesh from which it sprang.
~ Diana Gabaldon
No. Ye loved him. I canna hold it against either of you that ye mourn him. And it gives me some comfort to know ... He hesitated, and I reached up to smooth the rumpled hair off his face. To know what? That should the need come, you might mourn for me that way, he said softly.
~ Diana Gabaldon
Involuntarily, I reached out, as though I might heal him with a touch and erase the marks with my fingers.
~ Diana Gabaldon
The greatest burden lies in caring for those we cannot help.
~ Diana Gabaldon
Lord, he'd said. Let me be enough. That prayer had lodged in my heart like an arrow when I'd heard it and thought he asked for help in doing what had to be done. But that wasn't what he'd meant at all—and the realization of what he had meant split my heart in two. I took his face between my hands, and wished so much that I had his own gift, the ability to say what lay in my heart, in such a way that he would know. But I hadn't.
~ Diana Gabaldon
You may have it," he said. His voice was very low, but he met my eyes straight on. "All of it. Anything that was ever done to me. If ye wish it, if it helps ye, I will live it through again.
~ Diana Gabaldon
I think perhaps the greatest burden lies in caring for those we cannot help. Not in having no one for whom to care? Fraser paused before answering; he might have been weighing the position of the pieces on the table. That is emptiness, he said at last, softly. But no great burden
~ Diana Gabaldon
She supposed that it it perhaps not fair to quarrel with someone on the basis of what you thought they were thinking
~ Diana Gabaldon