Quotes About Empathy

being different is not a problem. It's just being different. but feeling different is a problem. When you feel different, the feeling can actually change the way you see the world.

Your differentness and my different-ness are just facts. Sometimes what we do with our minds turn those facts into pain, and sometimes we can just treat them as facts, acknowledging them but not feeling them. But the more you feel your different-ness, the more lonely you will feel.

We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical, linear, computerlike capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of what's rising in its place, the Conceptual Age.

A few of us are extraverts. A few of us are introverts. But most of us are ambiverts, sitting near the middle, not the edges, happily attuned to those around us. In some sense, we are born to sell.

The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind—creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers.

Mastery of design, empathy, play, and other seemingly "soft" aptitudes is now the main way for individuals and firms to stand out in a crowded marketplace.

Anytime you're tempted to upsell someone else, stop what you're doing and upserve instead. Don't try to increase what they can do for you. Elevate what you can do for them.

Today, the defining skills of the previous era—the "left brain" capabilities that powered the Information Age—are necessary but no longer sufficient. And the capabilities we once disdained or thought frivolous—the "right-brain" qualities of inventiveness, empathy, joyfulness, and meaning—increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders.

Self-compassion begins by replacing searing judgment with basic kindness.

3. Study self-compassion.

Every circumstance in which we try to move others by definition involves another human being. Yet in the name of professionalism, we often neglect the human element and adopt a stance that's abstract and distant.

and, in its own sweet way, more beautiful than we realize. The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness.

The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness.

I used to believe that synchronizing with others was merely a mechanical process. Now I believe that it requires a sense of belonging, rewards a sense of purpose, and reveals a part of our nature.

Listening to the conversations of those nearby has a bad reputation. But we all do it, so we might as well make it worthwhile. Next time you're in a position to eavesdrop, listen carefully to what your targets are saying. Then imagine yourself as one of those people in that situation. What are you (that is, him or her) thinking and feeling at that moment? What emotions, if any, are coursing through your body? How did you end up in this particular place at this particular time?

IDEO is one of the world's most respected design firms—the creator of everything from those fat-handled toothbrushes for kids to Apple Computer's first mouse to the Palm V. How do they do it? The secret would make an MBA squirm: Empathy. In the IDEO universe, great design doesn't begin with a cool drawing or a nifty gadget. It begins with a deep and empathic understanding of people.

Story represents a pathway to understanding that doesn't run through the left side of the brain.

the R-Directed aptitudes so often disdained and dismissed—artistry, empathy, taking the long view, pursuing the transcendent—will increasingly determine who soars and who stumbles. It's a dizzying—but ultimately inspiring—change.

when both parties view their encounters as opportunities to learn, the desire to defeat the other side struggles to find the oxygen it needs.

The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness. It

Tell someone else about the regret in person or by phone. Include sufficient detail about what happened, but establish a time limit (perhaps a half hour) to avoid the possibilities of repetition and brooding.

You might be surprised. Searching for similarities—Hey, I've got a dachshund, too!—may seem trivial. We dismiss such things as "small talk." But that's a mistake. Similarity—the genuine, not the manufactured, variety—is a key form of human connection. People are more likely to move together when they share common ground.

Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else's position and to intuit what that person is feeling. It is the ability to stand in others' shoes, to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hearts. It is something we do pretty much spontaneously, an act of instinct rather than the product of deliberation.

Empathy isn't sympathy—that is, feeling bad for someone else. It is feeling with someone else, sensing what it would be like to be that person. Empathy is a stunning act of imaginative derring-do, the ultimate virtual reality—climbing into another's mind to experience the world from that person's perspective.