Quotes About Empathy

A president sets a tone for the nation and helps tailor habits of heart and of mind.

Politicians often talk too much and listen too little, which can be self-defeating, for in many instances the surer route to winning a friend is not to convince them that you are right but that you care what they

The world is full of illegitimate children. The world is full of folk whose taste was educated in the gutter. The world is full of people born hating and despising their fellows. To these I love to say: See this man. He was one of you and yet he became Abraham Lincoln.

I tell you this: you do not lead by hitting people over the head. Any damn fool can do that, but it's usually called 'assault'—not 'leadership.'… I'll tell you what leadership is. It's persuasion—and conciliation—and education—and patience. It's long, slow, tough work. That's the only kind of leadership I know—or believe in—or will practice.

you do not lead by hitting people over the head. Any damn fool can do that, but it's usually called 'assault'—not 'leadership.'… I'll tell you what leadership is. It's persuasion—and conciliation—and education—and patience. It's long, slow, tough work.

From Plato to Kant, the substance of what is known as the Golden Rule—one common to the world's religious and moral traditions—has occupied philosophers across the ages. Lincoln's own sensibility—both moral and political—was founded on this injunction. "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master," he once wrote. "This expresses my idea of democracy.

Right is of no sex—Truth is of no color—God is the father of us all, and all we are brethren.

In his closing remarks, King spoke from a mountaintop, a prophet bringing word from on high. Lewis spoke more simply, from the valley, among the people whose burdens he knew because they were his burdens too.

And I tell you this: you do not lead by hitting people over the head. Any damn fool can do that, but it's usually called 'assault'—not 'leadership.'…I'll tell you what leadership is. It's persuasion—and conciliation—and education—and patience. It's long, slow, tough work. That's the only kind of leadership I know—or believe in—or will

FDR had the gifts of self-knowledge and a compassion for the plight of others—saving graces that enabled him to become one of a handful of truly great and transformative presidents.

In our finest hours, though, the soul of the country manifests itself in an inclination to open our arms rather than to clench our fists; to look out rather than to turn inward; to accept rather than to reject.

There was, of course, a more immediate point to frequent gatherings of lawmakers, diplomats, and cabinet officers at the president's table. It tends to be more difficult to oppose—or at least to vilify—someone with whom you have broken bread and drunk wine. Caricatures crack as courses are served; imagined demonic plots fade with dessert.

It tends to be more difficult to oppose—or at least to vilify—someone with whom you have broken bread and drunk wine. Caricatures

King continued: "It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, 'That was not enough! But I was hungry, and ye fed me not. I was naked, and ye clothed me not. I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in, and ye provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. If ye do it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto me.' That's the question facing America today.

Writing in 1783, George Washington had articulated what we like to think of as the American way on such things: "The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions.

If you treat people as monuments you limit the capacity to teach. (on Armchair Expert podcast)

If you ever sit here, you will learn that you cannot, just by shouting from the housetops, get what you want all the time.

his other hand. Sensitive to his guest's affliction, Churchill realized that "every step" was

We have seen the hard looks and heard the statements in which not each other's ideas are challenged, but each other's motives." He

In judging of others, let us always think the best, and employ the spirit of charity and candor. But in judging of ourselves, we ought to be exact and severe.

Today we are faced with the pre-eminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships—the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together in the same world, at peace.

Ask a victim to look at the positive things and she'll say, 'I can't. My eyes are swollen

I am the neurological opposite of a psychopath, in that I feel anxious almost all the time. It must be great to not constantly feel like you've got someone living inside your face, shooting you with a mini Taser.

If anyone should change their behaviour, I thought, it ought to be those doing the shaming.