Quotes About Empathy

Silly,' he said with mock serenity, 'isn't a word you should ever apply to people. They may be totally stupid, in fact, but if you call them silly you've lost their vote.

Just as the prisoner was being strapped into the electric chair, the priest said, "Son, is there anything I can do for you?" The prisoner said, "Yeah, when they pull the switch, hold my hand."

To be fully human has little to do with always being the centre of attention, getting your way and having all your ambitions met. To be fully human is to be like Christ, to 'count others better than yourselves' (Phil 2:13)...It takes rare strength to treat others as more important than yourself.

British antiaircraft units stationed at the field, and that was the first time I'd ever seen any real emotion from a limey. They actually had tears in their eyes. You could see that they felt like hell standing there watching us go into battle even though

And he said, This schoolroom is an immense town, and in it there are a million inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are starved to death in the streets, in the course of a year. What is your remark on that proportion? And my remark was- for I couldn't think of a better one- that I thought it must be just as hard upon those who were starved , whether the others were a million, or a million million.

Comment pourrait-on faire sentir l'intensité de cette honte à ceux qui ne l'ont jamais vécue ? Et la force des motivations engendrées par la volonté d'en sortir ? (p. 47)

Mais je n'ai jamais su être égoïste longtemps – peut-être parce que je n'ai rien à défendre. J'ai

Distant or near, in joy or in sorrow, each in the other sees his true helper to brotherly freedom.

There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated in short, from the perspective of those who suffer. Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action.

We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.

If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure.

I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me.

The Church is the Church only when it exists for others...not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.

If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all. ... How can I possibly serve another person in unfeigned humility if I seriously regard his sinfulness as worse than my own?

Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love. Be his enmity political or religious, he has nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love. In such love there is not inner discord between the private person and official capacity. In both we are disciples of Christ, or we are not Christians at all.

Being free means "being free for the other," because the other has bound me to him. Only in relationship with the other am I free

No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy.

Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake. Therefore, human love seeks direct contact with the other person; it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself. It wants to gain, to capture by every means; it uses force. It desires to be irresistible, to rule.

As brother stands by brother in distress, binding up his wounds and soothing his pain, so let us show our love towards our enemy. There is no deeper distress to be found in the world, no pain more bitter than our enemy's. Nowhere is service more necessary or more blessed than when we serve our enemies.

In total reality, he comes in the form of the beggar, of the dissolute human child in ragged clothes, asking for help. He confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you.

We have to learn that personal suffering is a more effective key, a more rewarding principle for exploring the world in thought and action than personal good fortune.

And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.

But I'm afraid I'm bad at comforting; I can listen all right, but I can hardly ever find anything to say.

Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God.