Quotes About Empathy

Why couldn't two unhappy people refresh each other on their way through this dusty business of life by a little talk—real, natural talk, about what they felt, what they would have liked, what they still tried to hope?

If one believed in angels one would feel that they must love us best when we are asleep and cannot hurt each other; and what a mercy it is that once in every twenty-four hours we are too utterly weary to go on being unkind. The doors shut, and the lights go out, and the sharpest tongue is silent, and all of us, scolder and scolded, happy and unhappy, master and slave, judge and culprit, are children again, tired, and hushed, and helpless, and forgiven. And

Why couldn't two unhappy people refresh each other on their way through this dusty business of life by a little talk—real, natural talk, about what they felt, what they would have liked, what they still tried to hope?

and there is no getting away from it, I am made for dogs and dogs for me, because the instant I saw him I began to cheer up. Sitting

Really I have been thankful on my knees every time I have not said what I was going to say when I've been annoyed.

can never see two people contradicting each other without feeling wretched. Why contradict? Why argue at all? Only one's Best-Beloved, one's Closest and Most Understanding should be contradicted and argued with. How simple to keep quiet with all the rest and agree to everything they say.

Well, I for one am unable to imagine how anybody who lives with an intelligent and devoted dog can ever be lonely.

Medical problems, job losses, and family breakups had laid these families low. Most had hung on and tried to repay long past any reasonable chance of doing so. As I saw it, the families in bankruptcy were mostly good people caught in a bad situation

He just put his hand through the bulkhead, exactly as she'd done, and squeezed my shoulder. He has very strong fingers. And he kept his hand there the whole way home, even when he was reading the map and giving me headings. So I am not flying alone now after all.

Oh Julie, wouldn't I know if you were dead? Wouldn't I feel it happening, like a jolt of electricity to my heart?

And she keeps saying, how can you do this to me? And i want to scream, what do you mean, how can I do this to you? Aren't we confusing our pronouns here? The question, really, is How could I do this to myself?

And it seemed hard to believe that these people who were so close to me couldn't see how desperate I was, or if they could they didn't care enough to do anything about it, or if they cared enough to do anything about it they didn't believe there was anything they could do, not knowing—or not wanting to know—that their belief might have been the thing that made the difference.

I am so tired of the girl in the infirmary, I am so sick of the girl who cries wolf all the time - even though not one of those cries was ever a false alarm. Not one of my pleas was ever less than truly urgent because when it's all in your mind, there always IS a wolf.

If you already know what your response will be before you've heard what the other person has said, you are not listening.

I hated him for not being depressed. He seemed a fool-- everyone who didn't feel like me was a fool. I alone knew the truth about life, knew that it was all a miserable downward spiral that you could either admit to or ignore, but sooner or later we were all going to die.

Depression is a very narcissistic thing, it's a self involvement that is so deep and intense that it means the sufferer cannot get out of her own head long enough to see what real good, what genuine loveliness, there is in the world around her.

I'm not crying because you're mean. I just can't imagine how incredibly painful it must be to be you.

He seemed a fool-everyone who didn't feel like me seems a fool.

The best people are the ones you have to forgive for everything. You have no choice; it would be worse to live without them.

I don't want anyone feeling sorry for me. About anything. Don't apologize unless you have done something wrong. It is nasty to feel sorry for anyone for any reason because it pushes her away.

Our suffering is small compared to our misunderstandings with others, how they fail to give us a break, know what it's like, judge us fairly, see the world the way we do.

I know how taxing it is to do something even as small and brief as having a meal with a depressive. We are such irritating people, can see the dark side of everything, and our perpetual malcontentedness kind of ruins it for everybody.

Until lions start writing down their own stories, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter." —AFRICAN PROVERB

Books, the books that I loved above all else to spend my time with, were the great tools for understanding one's life and the lives of other people.