Becoming aware of the intense suffering of billions of animals, and of our own participation in that suffering, can bring up painful emotions: sorrow and grief for the animals; anger at the injustice and deception...

Imagining someone else’s pain with too much surety can be as damaging as failing to imagine it.

A book is a little empathy machine. It puts you inside somebody else’s head. You see out of the world through somebody else’s eyes. It’s very hard to hate people of a certain kind when...

I’m not asking you to walk in my shoes; I’d never wish my afflictions on anyone. But could you walk beside me on secure ground and reach to hold my hand?

When we fail to harmonize and integrate, living systems, from individuals to families and countries, tend to move toward either chaos or rigidity.

…if we do not know how to defend ourselves, our women and our places of worship by force of suffering, i.e., nonviolence, we must, if we are men, be at least able to defend all...

LEAR: …yet you see how this world goes.GLOS.: I see it feelingly.

Is it foolish to care for non-existent folk?Then, leave me to my foolishness.

Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the...

When we take into consideration the needs of both ourselves and others, we communicate honestly, compassionately and effectively.

When you can begin to see the similarities between you and your work colleagues in respect of ‘being human’ and the collective challenges we all face, it makes life much easier to deal with, especially...

If I could give one message to the bullied, it would be this: You are not alone. You are strong. You have a voice. You are beautiful. You are intelligent. There are many kids who...

Since I was a small girl, I have lived inside this cottage, shelted by its roof and walls. I have known of people suffering—I have not been blind to them in the way that privilege...

When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make...

You can’t fix things with a hug, but you can’t make them any worse either.

…to make art is to realize another’s sadness within, realize the hidden sadness in other people’s lives, to feel sad with and for a stranger.

I learn from my own daughter that you don’t have to be awake to cry.

…the best way to forgive someone is to enter into their sufferings …

Walk with me for a while, my friend—you in my shoes, I in yours—and then let us talk.

I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.

Help other people ,help themselves

Half of the time, the Holy Ghost tries to warn us about certain people that come into our life. The other half of the time he tries to tell us that the sick feeling we...

For you see, when us people who know run into each other that’s an event. It almost never happens. Sometimes we meet each other and neither guesses that the other is one who knows. That’s...

Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful...

How can the intensity of this shame be understood by those who have never experienced it? How can they understand the strength of the motivations produced by the desire to escape from it?

Sympathy’s easy. You have sympathy for starving children swatting at flies on the late-night commercials. Sympathy is easy because it comes from a position of power. Empathy is getting down on your knees and looking...

To care means first of all to empty our own cup and to allow the other to come close to us. It means to take away the many barriers which prevent us from entering into...

How does one develop compassion for someone with a completely different set of values without reading something from their point of view? Books are one of the ways in which we can truly get into...

•People deserve a break. The stressed and unorganized person who doesn’t have the same priorities as you may be dealing with an autistic child, abusive spouse, fading parents, or cancer. Don’t judge people until you’ve...

Life is always going to be a series of ouch-making moments, and the question was, was I going to go all fetal position, or was I going to woman up? I went into fetal position...

Try to get inside the world of Homer and see what it would be like to think with his view of reality. Only then can you begin to judge it, because only then do you...

When my sister was released from the mental hospital, she came to live with me in the tilting and crumbling one-bedroom house I’d bought with the small amount of money I inherited when our parents...

I’m too intense. I feel too much. And when I experience certain sensations, I act. Even if the situation is one I should probably walk away from. But you know what?” She was feeling a...

Because of the value placed on individual materialistic success in our society, we are surrounded by people primarily interested in getting something from others. Their attitudes are characterised by selfishness and a lack of empathy...

Mostly we tell the story of our lives, or mostly we’re taught to tell it, as a quest to avoid suffering, though if your goal is a search for meaning, honor, experience, the same events...

God always brings someone into your life that has traveled the same path and knows the rocks you climbed to get to the end of the trail.

(In part, quoting Robert Keegan from Harvard):’When we take the risk of really witnessing another human being, when we validate their human experience, we risk becoming recruited to their welfare.’ I allow my empathy to...

You see, it’s about empathy. It’s not about you. It’s about empathy. It’s not even about caring or being kind. It’s about empathy. Do you think that all people who can empathize with other people...

I’m so sorry,” he said, because after Pamela died, he promised himself that if anyone told him the smallest, saddest story, he would answer, I’m so sorry. Meaning, Yes, that happened. You couldn’t believe the...

Be willing to give, but only when you aren’t expecting anything in return.

Vielleicht wird unser Vorurteil auch dadurch bestärkt, daß es – von außen gesehen – oft vom Leben Begünstigte zu sein scheinen, […] denen wir daher sozusagen das Recht nicht zusprechen wollen, daß sie erkrankten; kennt...

It’s not so much the journey that’s important; as is the way that we treat those we encounter and those around us, along the way

But why must the system go to such lengths to block our empathy? Why all the psychological acrobatics? The answer is simple: because we care about animals, and we don’t want them to suffer. And...

Empathy comes from the Greek empatheia – em (into) and pathos (feeling) – a penetration, a kind of travel. It suggests you enter another person’s pain as you’d enter another country, through immigration and customs,...

You can’t love someone without imaginative sympathy, without beginning to see the world from another point of view. You can’t be a good lover, a good artist or a good politician without this capacity (you...

Sometimes all you can do is hug a friend tightly and wish that their pain could be transferred by touch to your own emotional hard drive.

The moderns, carrying little baggage of the kind that Shelly called “merely cultural,” not even living in the traditional air, but breathing into their space helmets a scientific mixture of synthetic gases (and polluted at...

These relationships can last for years if there’s a sense of empathy on the broker’s part, … Clients leave a broker because of interaction that makes them feel terrible.

After every storm, there is a rainbow. If you have eyes, you will find it. If you have wisdom, you will create it. If you have love for yourself and others, you won’t need it.

God only knows the torment of the suffering soul and only he can take away the pain.