Quotes About Empathy

But other times, you'll discover that you're sticking with an irrational person simply because you don't want to feel like a bad person yourself.

The trick to this approach is to ask the question ("Do you really believe that?") not in a hostile or degrading manner, but very calmly and in a straightforward way. Your intent is not to antagonize the other person, but rather to make the person stop and realize, "I really am making a mountain out of a molehill. I must sound like a jackass.

identify the negative qualities that you find most bothersome in the people around you and start acting toward these people as though they're exhibiting the opposing positive qualities. For

Of course, every few years you may be shocked when someone responds to your question "Do you really believe that?" with a very firm "yes." If so, be reachable yourself and listen to what the person has to say. A person who's brave enough to say "yes" to this question, and to stick by that answer, probably has some legitimate issues and will be happier and more productive if you iron those issues out.

Realizing that it isn't personal doesn't mean you shouldn't take it personally. If you don't, in fact, it may mean that you haven't put enough of yourself into the effort.

And it occurred to him that there were two parts to being a better person. One part was thinking about other people. The other part was not giving a toss what other people thought.

From here on in, I rag nobody

Do you think you are going to live forever? Is life so long you rather rag somebody than be nice to them?

Probably everybody be nice to you if they knew you were dying," he said. "Everybody knows everybody is dying," I said. "That is why people are nice. You all die soon enough, so why not be nice to each other?

Adventure becomes hubris when it blinds you to the suffering of the human beings next to you.

Instead of revenge, transcend.

The motivation to make a "Wow!" impression is not to better everyone else in town. It's not about stroking our egos, pleased with how excellent we are. "Wow!" impressions matter because people matter. What they think matters. What they believe matters. What they want matters. What they need matters. First

Empathy, he finally assured me, "will be one of the strongest things about Trump. "When I'm in that position," he continued, "when we have horrible hurricanes, all kinds of horrible things happen, you've got to have empathy." Trump then returned to watching himself on the flat screen.

There is no life for the enemy apart from what makes life and justice for those they oppress. Love of the enemy animated by Thurman's "vital content" means putting an end to the system of death which enemies create, inhabit, and by which they maintain structures afflicting oppressed peoples.

Whatever it takes to break your heart and wake you up is grace.

When people are in need, you must be present. When people suffer, you must let them know you're suffering with them." "The good side of bad acts?" I say. "I would not say that from horror comes goodness. That would be giving horror too much credit. But goodness prevails in spite of horror.

if your heart is not right, no one cares about your leadership skills.

What our closest friends do for us is to teach us true selflessness. We learn that while it might be safer for them if we keep them out, true friendship means letting them in. We cannot decide for them what they are willing to suffer with us and for us. While we certainly don't want to see our friends suffer, friendship isn't about protecting each other from pain so much as it is about helping each other to become what God has called us to be.

Those who truly love us will never knowingly ask us to be other than we are

If I dare to hear you I will feel you like the sun And grow in your direction.

there is a great choice that awaits us every day: whether we go around carving holes in others because we have been so painfully carved ourselves, or whether we let spirit play its song through our tender experience, enabling us to listen, as well, to the miraculous music coming through others.

But compassion is a deeper thing that waits beyond the tension of choosing sides. Compassion, in practice, does not require us to give up the truth of what we feel or the truth of our reality. Nor does it allow us to minimize the humanity of those who hurt us. Rather, we are asked to know ourselves enough that we can stay open to the truth of others, even when their truth or their inability to live up to their truth has hurt us.

In a world that lives like a fist mercy is not more than waking with your hands open.

Not having the company of books made me feel even more isolated.