Quotes About Empathy

across the aeons and the global distances what all the peoples of the world really have in common is so many similar ways of doing humiliating and painful things to each other.

Like always having the sound of someone drilling a hole in a wall, not your wall, but a wall like very close to you, George said. Like, say you wake up one morning to the noise of someone along the road having work done on his or her house and you don't just hear the drilling happening, you feel it in your own house, though it's actually happening several houses away.

Anyone who gives wings to another's shoulders, and then along the way gradually spreads out a hidden net, extinguishes completely the ardent charity enkindled by love precisely where it most desires to burn.

he always went straight to the machines and in a strange way it was a relief to because having to talk with someone, even the smallest, most casual talks, was sometimes quite hard because you always felt they judged you or you always felt shy or that you were saying a stupid or wrong thing. The pitfalls of human exchange, Sophia said.

Whole worlds open up when we start a conversation.

This is part empathy, part thievery. Empathy, in art, is art's part-exchange with us, its inclusivity, at once a kindness, a going beyond the self, and a pickpocketing of our responses, which is why giving and taking are bound up with the goods, with the gods, with respect, with deep-seated understanding about the complex cultural place where kindness, thievery, bartering, and gift-giving all meet, make their exchanges, and by exchange reveal real worth.

Maybe it's easier to talk to someone who won't ever actually hear what you say.

A wise friend told me that we all could use more than one set of parents—our relations with the original set are too intense, and need dissipating.

Something had lubricated us. Something had washed us clean. I understood, and at the same minute I understood that that they all understood, too. Hate had passed away, and in its place was the other word that's just as big. ("Golden Baby")

Every life is meant to help all lives; each man should live for all men's betterment.

Life is just a short walk from the cradle to the grave, and it sure behooves us to be kind to one another along the way.

Gawd might forgive but people never will.

A gift - be it a present, a kind word or a job done with care and love - explains itself!... and if receivin' it embarrasses you, it's because your 'thanks box' is warped.

Friends have ways of speaking without words.

Strange, she thought, how friends come when you need them most! Some of them come and stay a long time...others come in and go out, but always leave something of themselves.

People who judge you all the time are not people you go to with real questions and problems. Starting

If it's very painful for you to criticize your friends — you're safe in doing it. But if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that's the time to hold your tongue.

If it's painful for you to criticize your friends, you're safe in doing it; if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that's the time to hold your tongue.

People love to talk but hate to listen. Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous human interest in what is being told us. You can listen like a blank wall or like a splendid auditorium where every sound comes back fuller and richer.

When your heart would ache to hear Other men's tongues repeating Those same light phrases that jest and jeer At a friend now grown so dear--so dear. Strange to remember long ago When a friend was almost a foe.

They hugged, pressing each other's arms, and their brief embraces buoyed them up - forbearance and grace passing back and forth between them like a piece of shared clothing, designated for use by whoever needed it most.

What does it matter if she breaks something, compared to her feeling as though she belongs?

everyone had specialties when it came to others.

She read Housekeeping, which Heidi loved because the odd people were the good people; The Handmaid's Tale, which she understood was terrifying even if the details were fuzzy; Giovanni's Room, which made her sigh, because people were so stubborn; The Professor's House, which she loved for the spooky dress form and Tom's trip to the old Southwest; and Anywhere But Here, which was Maud's favorite, because it starred a girl.