Empathy Quotes

Compassion is an action word with no boundaries.

Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?

We think we listen, but very rarely do we listen with real understanding, true empathy. Yet listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most potent forces for change that I know.

When someone really hears you without passing judgment on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good. . . . When I have been listened to and when I have been heard, I am able to re-perceive my world in a new way and to go on. It is astonishing how elements which seem insoluble become soluble when someone listens. How confusions which seem irremediable turn into relatively clear flowing streams when one is heard.

Empathy is the most powerful weapon [...]

Empathy is really important.. Only when our clever brain and our human heart work together in harmony can we achieve our full potential.

If language was given to men to conceal their thoughts, then gesture's purpose was to disclose them.

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.

Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.

The empathic understanding of the experience of other human beings is as basic an endowment of man as his vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell

I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.

It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul.

Man's inability to communicate is a result of his failure to listen effectively.

Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person.

True empathy is always free of any evaluative or diagnostic quality. This comes across to the recipient with some surprise. "If I am not being judged, perhaps I am not so evil or abnormal as I have thought".

Wouldn`t it be wonderful if we could all be a little more gentle with each other, and a little more loving, have a little more empathy, and maybe we'd like each other a little bit more.

'Empathy' is the latest code word for liberal activism, for treating the Constitution as malleable clay to be kneaded and molded in whatever form justices want. It represents an expansive view of the judiciary in which courts create policy that couldn't pass the legislative branch or, if it did, would generate voter backlash.

The functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy.

Humility is my table, respect is my garment, empathy is my food and curiosity is my drink. As for love, it has a thousand names and is by my side at every window.

Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.

Being kind doesn't mean being soft or a wuss. Kindness is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of confidence. If you have developed a reputation for kindness and consideration, then even the most unpleasant decisions will go down easier because everyone will understand why you are doing what you are doing. They will realize that your decision must be necessary, and is not arbitrary or without empathy. As the old saying puts it, 'To the world, you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.'

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

I never liked the atmosphere of Washington . I early saw that it was impossible to build up a race of which the leaders were spending most of their time, thought and energy in trying to get into office, or in trying to stay there after they were in.

seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.

Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding the third.

As we tell stories about the lives of others, we learn how to imagine what another creature might feel in response to various events. At the same time, we identify with the other creature and learn something about ourselves.

You don't need religion to have morals. If you can't decide right from wrong then you lack empathy, not religion.

If we took the time to learn more about different places and people, perhaps we would have more empathy for each other.

nothing is more important than empathy for another human being's suffering. Nothing. Not a career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we're going to survive with dignity.

Insensitivity makes arrogance ugly; empathy is what makes humility beautiful.

Powerful is our need to be known, really known by ourselves and others, even if only for a moment.

Listen, that you may live.

Feeling too much is a hell of a lot better than feeling nothing.

Man wishes to be confirmed in his being by man, and wishes to have a presence in the being of the other…. Secretly and bashfully he watches for a YES which allows him to be and which can come to him only from one human person to another.

Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing.

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.

Try to see it my way, only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong. While you see it your way, there's a chance that we might fall apart before too long. We can work it out. W e can work it out.

Education leads to enlightenment. Enlightenment opens the way to empathy. Empathy foreshadows reform.

A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.

Understanding people's difficulties and-just as crucial-helping people understand their own difficulties and teaching them concrete ways to help themselves will help them better deal with their own lives and, in turn, ours.

Just as white light consists of colored rays, so reverence for life contains all the components of ethics: love, kindliness, sympathy, empathy, peacefulness and power to forgive.

I live in the facial expressions of the other, as I feel him living in mine.

Learning a foreign language, and the culture that goes with it, is one of the most useful things we can do to broaden the empathy and imaginative sympathy and cultural outlook of children.

Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

Empathy may be the single most important quality that must be nurtured to give peace a fighting chance.

When were you born, who are your parents, where did you grow up? None of us earns these things. These things were given to us. So when we strip away all of our luck and our privilege, and we consider where we'd be without them, it becomes much easier to see someone who's poor and say, "That could be me." And that's empathy.

When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That's when you can get more creative in solving problems.

Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.

The recurring theme of all religions is a sympathy, empathy, connection, capacity between the human and the divine - that we were made for union with one another. They might express this through different rituals, doctrines, dogmas, or beliefs, but at the higher levels they're talking about the same goal. And the goal is always union with the divine.

One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient. In fact, a man convinced of his virtue even in the midst of his vice is the worst kind of man.