Quotes About Empathy

Just imagine for a day that you do not know anything, that what you believe could be completely false. Let go of your preconceptions and even your most cherished beliefs. Experiment. Force yourself to hold the opposite opinion or see the world through your enemy's eyes. Listen to the people around you with more attentiveness. See everything as a source for education—even the most banal encounters. Imagine that the world is still full of mystery.

Our natural tendency is to project onto other people our own belief and value systems, in ways in which we are not even aware.

You must be the mirror, training your mind to try to see yourself as others see you.

real action and true helpfulness are perhaps the ultimate charm.

In a speech Abraham Lincoln delivered at the height of the Civil War, he referred to the Southerners as fellow human beings who were in error. An elderly lady chastised him for not calling them irreconcilable enemies who must be destroyed. "Why, madam," Lincoln replied, "do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

As Abraham Lincoln said, "I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.

Men do not understand how women think, and vice versa; each tries to make the other act more like a member of their own sex.

The key to staying unintimidated is to convince yourself that the person you're facing is a mere mortal, no different from you-- which is in fact the truth. See the person, not the myth. Imagine him or her as a child, as someone riddled with insecurities. Cutting the other person down to size will help your keep your mental balance.

We are all self-absorbed, locked in our own worlds. It is a therapeutic and liberating experience to be drawn outside ourselves and into the world of another.

Through continual exposure to people and by attempting to think inside of them we can gain an increasing sense of their perspective, but this requires effort on our part.

In fact, the better you are at dealing with power, the better friend, lover, husband, wife, and person you become.

If you are observing someone you naturally dislike, or who reminds you of someone unpleasant in your past, you will tend to see almost any cue as unfriendly or hostile. You will do the opposite for people you like. In these exercises you must strive to subtract your personal preferences and prejudices about people.

you often do not know your friends as well as you imagine. Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument. They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as to not offend each other. They laugh extra hard at each other's jokes. Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends will say that they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothes—maybe they mean it, often they do not. When

To this day, we humans remain highly susceptible to the moods and emotions of those around us, compelling all kinds of behavior on our part—unconsciously imitating others, wanting what they have, getting swept up in viral feelings of anger or outrage. We

You cannot spend your life worrying about the petty feelings of others.

If they come from another culture, it is all the more important to understand this culture from within their experience.

Understand: we can never really experience what other people are experiencing. We always remain on the outside looking in, and this is the cause of so many misunderstandings and conflicts.

There is nothing to be gained by insulting a person unnecessarily. Swallow the impulse to offend, even if the other person seems weak. The satisfaction is meager compared to the danger that someday he or she will be in a position to hurt you.

In knowing yourself, you accept your limits. You are simply one person among many in the world, and not naturally superior to anyone.

We are continually judging other people. We want others to think and act a certain way. Usually, the way we think and act. Because this is impossible, we continually get upset. Instead, we should see other people as phenomena, as neutral as comets or planets. They come in all varieties, which makes like rich and interesting.

You must never assume that what people say or do in a particular moment is a statement of their permanent desires.

Seducers are never self-absorbed. Their gaze is directed outward, not inward. When they meet someone their first move is to get inside that person's skin, to see the world through their eyes.

Toad," she said presently, "just listen, please. I have an aunt who is a washerwoman." "There, there," said Toad, graciously and affably, "never mind; think no more about it. I have several aunts who ought to be washerwomen." "Do be quiet a minute, Toad," said the girl. "You talk too much, that's your chief fault, and I'm trying to think, and you hurt my head

Misery, in cold truth, is a weight less upon those who undergo it than upon the minds of those who see it; for he who is cold and starving is so busy in his efforts to obtain warmth and food that he has little time for self-pity, and endures his unhappy condition better than those who take it upon themselves to suffer for him.