Quotes About Empathy

The consumer isn't a moron. She is your wife.

The most effective leader is the one who satisfies the psychological needs of his followers.

Healthy individuals are not interested in rescuing desperate peers, nor do they feel guilty about leaving or avoiding excessively demanding acquaintances.

Better is one day in the company of those bullied by Christians but loved by Jesus than thousands in the company of those wielding scripture to harm the weak and defenseless.

Make your church a context where parents know that the right response to their teenagers is never to reject them as human beings, never to throw them out.

For the first time my prayers were not for me but for everyone else, that all of those things in my notebooks, on all of those tapes, in all of those envelopes and bags in my room, that none of them were true, that the dead were alive and the lost were found, and that all of those lives could be lived anew.

For the first time my prayers were not for me but for everyone else, that the dead were alive and the lost were found, and that all those lives could be lived anew.

JFK apparently felt genuine sympathy for his 1960 presidential opponent Richard Nixon. He felt that, with Nixon's frequent shifts in political philosophy and reinventions, he must have to decide which Nixon he will be at each stop. This, Kennedy reasoned, must be exhausting.

Compassion is not pity, not even empathetic pity. There is arrogance and haughty pride in pitying others. Compassion is when we are confronted with another's suffering and we suffer with them. Their pain is ours. We are motivated to relieve their suffering. When we feel true compassion we help those who suffer, not as a cathartic release, but because it breaks our heart that they are hurting. I have not always known or believed these things, but I am thankful that I do now.

Do not tell someone you love them, and then vote for someone who will hurt them.

Hate the injustice not the unjust man, even though that shit is hard.

Stand on the shoulders of others, not their throats, heads, and backs.

Standing on someone you knocked down does not make you taller.

You don't have to be black, brown, red, or yellow to do good research about the experiences of people of color. You don't have to fabricate a racial/ethnic identity to be a researcher--or even an activist. Knowledge belongs to all of us. Activism belongs to all of us. Stop centering yourselves in the lived experiences of people of color. Just do the work that needs to be done.

Changing the way we talk is not political correctness run amok. It reflects an admirable willingness to acknowledge others who once were barely visible to the dominant culture, and to recognize that something that may seem innocent to you may be painful to others.

We don't care if you're wearing a suit or a T-shirt and jeans. What we care about is the condition of the heart." Gary Davis, Church in the Wind

One thing I've learned is that just because you can successfully lie to yourself doesn't mean you're not completely transparent to the people you love.

Eventually, it can lead us to have compassion for everyone, when we see how we all must struggle with the downside of human nature. Everyone is crippled in some area, and everyone is somewhere on the path of evolution, some ahead of us, and some behind.

Whatever kind of energy you bring to it, it will give it right back to you. If you're frustrated, it'll act frustrated. If you're calm, it's more likely to be calm, too.

Is there some lesson on how to be friends? I think what it means is that central to living a life that is good is a life that's forgiving. We're creatures of contact regardless of whether we kiss or we wound. Still, we must come together. Though it may spell destruction, we still ask for more-- since it beats staying dry but so lonely on shore. So we make ourselves open while knowing full well it's essentially saying "please, come pierce my shell.

People are really trying their best. Just like being happy and sad, you will find yourself on both sides of the equation many times over your lifetime, either saying or hearing the wrong thing. Let's all give each other a pass, shall we?

There is nothing so cleansing or reassuring as a vicarious sadness.

We are all connected in ways we cannot even begin to fathom. Our lives unfold through each other and within each other. What one suffers, we all feel. What one does changes others forever.

We are not separate, and I want you to know that. We are all part of one thing, and nothing good has ever passed or ever can pass away. There is no way out, but there is a way in, and when one person feels lonely like a ghost it touches us all.