Quotes About Empathy

I almost wish that anyone were here, so I could just talk about anything. I know Harry used to accuse me of being anti-social (because of my not liking parties and shutting myself away painting), but it is a very dreadful and isolating experience not to have exchanged one single word with another human being for as long as I have.

A people, Dr Alison had said, should be judged by the way they treated those weaker than themselves.

Every child, every person needs to know that they are a source of joy; every child, every person, needs to be celebrated. Only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed.

When we love and respect people, revealing to them their value, they can begin to come out from behind the walls that protect them.

When people love each other, they are content with very little. When we have light and joy in our hearts, we don't need material wealth. The most loving communities are often the poorest. If our own life is luxurious and wasteful, we can't approach poor people. If we love people, we want to identify with them and share with them.

Jesus is the starving, the parched, the prisoner, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the dying. Jesus is the oppressed, the poor. To live with Jesus is to live with the poor. To live with the poor is to live with Jesus.

People cannot accept their own evil if they do not at the same time feel loved, respected and trusted.

It is only when we stand up, with all our failings and sufferings, and try to support others rather than withdraw into ourselves, that we can fully live the life of community.

But let us not put our sights too high. We do not have to be saviours of the world! We are simply human beings, enfolded in weakness and in hope, called together to change our world one heart at a time. (163)

The poor are always prophetic. As true prophets always point out, they reveal God's design. That is why we should take time to listen to them. And that means staying near them, because they speak quietly and infrequently; they are afraid to speak out, they lack confidence in themselves because they have been broken and oppressed. But if we listen to them, they will bring us back to the essential.

Every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. (23-24)

At the heart of the celebration, there are the poor. If [they] are excluded, it is not longer a celebration. [...] A celebration must always be a festival of the poor.

I believe every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. Violence should not be answered just by greater violence but by real understanding. We must ask: 'Where is the violence coming from? What is its meaning?

Sometimes it is easier to hear the cries of poor people who are far away than it is to hear the cries of our brothers and sisters in our own community. There is nothing very splendid in responding to the cry of the person who is with us day after day and who gets on our nerves. Perhaps too we can only respond to the cries of others when we have recognized and accepted the cry of our own pain.

We human beings are all fundamentally the same. We all belong to a common, broken humanity. We all have wounded, vulnerable hearts. Each one of us needs to feel appreciated and understood; we all need help.

This evolution towards a real responsibility for others is sometimes blocked by fear. It is easier to stay on the level of a pleasant way of life in which we keep our freedom and our distance. But that means that we stop growing and shut ourselves up in our own small concerns and pleasures.

Our humanity is so beautiful, but it needs to be transformed

Community as caring . . . So many people enter groups in order to develop a certain form of spirituality or to acquire knowledge about the things of God and of humanity. But that is not community; it is a school. It becomes community only when people start truly caring for each other and for each other's growth.

Weakness, recognized, accepted, and offered, is at the heart of belonging, so it is at the heart of communion with another.

A group is the manifestation of this need to belong. A group can, however, close in on itself, believing that it is superior to others. But my vision is that belonging should be at the heart of a fundamental discovery: that we all belong to a common humanity, the human race. We may be rooted in a specific family and culture but we come to this earth to open up to others, to serve them and receive the gifts they bring to us, as well as to all of humanity.

The language of elitism smells bad! It is not healthy to believe that we are the only ones to have captured truth and even less healthy to condemn others.

The next chapter is about belonging: the essential need we have to be and to share with others. The human heart is a place of freedom. We can be obliged to follow the law but not to love, because "true love casts out fear." Our society grows in justice and peace as we allow energies of love and concern for all to rise up in ourselves.

Écouter, c'est d'abord une attitude. C'est chercher à comprendre l'autre avec ses souffrances, ses désirs et son espérance, sans le juger ni le condamner. Écouter, c'est mettre l'autre en valeur pour lui donner vie et l'aider à avoir confiance en lui...Quand je suis trop centré sur mes projets, quand j'ai besoin de me prouver, j'ai davantage du mal à écouter

Growth will come as we come closer to people who are different from us and as we learn to welcome and listen even to those who trigger off our pain.