Take lightly what you hear about individuals. We need not distort trust for our paltry little political agendas. We tend to trust soulless, carried information more than we trust soulful human beings; but really most...

We are out sisters’ keepers.

Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong...

I want a future abortion conversation known for its openness, respect and empathy, so instead of generating more heat, anger and conflict, I practice pro-voice.

When in Reading Gaol he told me that the warders in the dock had been gentle and kind, but the visit of the chaplain in his first prison began with these words:’Mr. Wilde, did you...

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and, therefore, the foundation of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power...

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

I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He...

This is what differentiates sympathy from empathy. No matter how much I care for you, it’s not until I recognize me in you and you in me that the veil of gauze is lifted on...

The nature of humanity, its essence, is to feel another’s pain as one’s own, and to act to take that pain away,. There is a nobility in compassion, a beauty in empathy, a grace in...

It’s a sad fact, but pain only makes you sorry for yourself.

I want my father to be just my father, the way he has always been, not a separate person with an earlier, mythological life of his own. Knowing too much about other people puts you...

The glory of fame isn’t in having so many people know you, but in having so many people know you care. Otherwise, it’s like being drawn to a fire to find no warmth.

It’s like when you’re excited about a girl and you see a couple holding hands, and you feel so happy for them. And other times you see the same couple, and they make you so...

Understanding that you can’t truly take credit for your successes, nor truly blame others for their failures will humble you and make you more compassionate.Empathy is intuitive, but is also something you can work on,...

Your strength will be found when you stop struggling with yourself, instead of thinking everyone is a struggle worth overcoming. Every obstacle in life is a lesson that teaches us, not others.

Other people’s sorrows and joys have a way of reminding us of our own; we partly emphasize with them because we ask ourselves: What about me? What does this say about my life, my pains,...

No one reaches out to you for compassion or empathy so you can teach them how to behave better. They reach out to us because they believe in our capacity to know our darkness well...

One of the benefits of aligning yourself with an indistinct cluster of people is that claiming to feel their pain is often enough.

Empathy is a breaking down of the false constructs of division between the observer and the observed.

If you happen to hold that human consciousness is no more than the epiphenomenon, or secretion, of our individual brains then you are more or less trapped in your own skull. But if consciousness is...

There is no force in the world better able to alter anything from its course than love.

Indeed, insight is the true hallmark of empathy. The power of true empathy is its ability to give us a fresh understanding of the other person’s emotions and thoughts to illuminate an aspect of their...

Maybe this is kind of cliche, but animals, well, dogs, are what I do for a living. One reason I like spending time with them so much is they seem to think people are really...

As far as you can, get into the habit of asking yourself in relation to any action taken by another: “What is his point of reference here?” But begin with yourself: examine yourself first.

A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see

You don’t have to go through someone’s pain to understand it. Empathy is enough.

No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care

Many of the great humanitarian and environmental campaigns of our time have been to make the unknown real, the invisible visible, to bring the faraway near, so that the suffering of sweatshop workers, torture victims,...

Why are…poor people more ready to share their goods than rich people? The answer is easy: The poor have little to lose; the rich have more to lose and they are more attached to their...

To erase the possibility of empathy is to erase the possibility of understanding.To erase the possibility of empathy is also to erase the possibility of art. Theater, fiction, horror stories, love stories. This is what...

Real action without the passion is difficult, but the real passion without the compassion is impossible.

Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn’t matter what religion you have, what God you profess to believe in; it doesn’t matter how rich you are or how poor you are, what church...

To me, empathy and compassion are among the bravest of emotions … and faith, the bravest of convictions.

When good people consider you the bad guy, you develop a heart to help the bad ones. You actually understand them.

As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence...

Empathy Is An Endangered Instinct

people do not emphasize with victims and give them limitless sympathy, but can very quickly switch to aggression and rejection

Sure, some news is bigger news than other news. War is bigger news than a girl having mixed feelings about the way some guy fucked her and didn’t call. But I don’t believe in a...

When we feel others’ pain, it triggers empathy. When we help others heal, it triggers self-healing. When we help others grow, it triggers self-growth. When we see everyone–and everything–as connected rather than divided, we lose...

When anesthesia was developed, it was for many decades routinely withheld from women giving birth, since women were “supposed” to suffer. One of the few societies to take a contrary view was the Huichol tribe...

Empathy is what separates human beings from teenage boys.

Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others…

This place was truly the highest and the lowest of all worlds – the most beautiful senses, the most exquisite emotions.. the most malevolent desires, the darkest deeds. Perhaps it was meant to be so....

Anguish is the universal language

I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our current politics in favor of those people who are struggling in this society. After all if they are like us, then their...

She might have been born this way, without an empathy gene and other essentials. In that case, she would interpret any kindness as weakness. Among predatory beasts, any display of weakness is an invitation to...

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other...

If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just...

By becoming interested in the cause, we are less likely to dislike the effect.