Empathy Quotes

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 attack.

Dean Koontz

Doing things for yourself (self-preservation) are ok in in small doses and when necessary but over-burdening you life with your own self will weaken your heart, soul connectivity with others

Paul Isaacs

The agony of the empath is feeling their pain but being unable to save them from it.

Donna Lynn Hope

Without empathy, there'd be no harmony in diversity

Jennifer Tindugan-Adoviso

I think that many people do not know what empathy is. They think empathy is understanding their own selves and then connecting with like-minded individuals, who of course will understand them since they all share the same ideas. Empathy has nothing to do with likemindedness; it has to do with being able to feel the things that others feel, even when you do not share the same ideas, life story, or absolutely nothing at all! When I hear someone say, “I don’t understand you”, that makes me feel sorry for them. I can even understand a rock, and they can’t understand me? My pet rocks have more empathy than they do.

C. JoyBell C.

There were relatives of their victims among the Hogwarts students, who now found themselves the unwilling objects of a gruesome sort of reflected fame as they walked the corridors: Susan Bones, whose uncle, aunt, and cousins had all died at the hands of one of the ten, said miserably during Herbology that she now had a good idea what it felt like to be Harry."And I don't know how you stand it- it's horrible" she said bluntly.

J.K. Rowling

Empathy allows us to enter the world of another. It allows us to take a mental vacation from ourselves.

Arthur P. Ciaramicoli

For some, life may be a playground to undermine the brainwaves of others or simply a vainglorious game with an armory of theatrics, illustrating only bleak self-deception, haughty narcissism and dim deficiency in empathy. ("Another empty room")

Erik Pevernagie

To be a strong and empathetic person always requires us to trust that God will send angels to the people's heart we tried to reach, but couldn't.

Shannon L. Alder

Be yourself one hundred and one thousand percent. Everybody man, from the sides to the back to the middle to the sides, you might not even know people, but if you rock with Lil B music and respect me from the core, you should know that based means you have someone you can trust, because we all have a common courtesy. It’s about having empathy now. What I mean is really caring and paying attention to somebody else’s feeling. You gotta have empathy and know we all on this common vibe. It’s all peace. It’s saying, hey, you know what, you can hit me and I’m not hitting you back. And that takes a very big person to do that.

Brandon McCartney

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?

Didier Eribon

I noticed that religion gave some people a way to escape dealing with the world: “Things will be better when you die,” the people of my grandma’s generation said as they worked themselves to death. “God wants you to forgive and love those who do you wrong,” some people said to shake off the shame of being unable to respond to the abuse they endured. The holier-than-thou faction found comfort in believing, “The rest of y’all are lost because you don’t have a personal relationship with God—our God.” But art engages you in the world, not just the world around you but the big world, and not just the big world of Tokyo and Sydney and Johannesburg, but the bigger world of ideas and concepts and feelings of history and humanity.

Wynton Marsalis

Some of us make it out. But the game is played with loaded dice. I wish I had known more, and I wished I had known it sooner.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

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

Ta-Nehisi Coates

I feel therefore I am.

Amit Abraham

I am because I feel.

Amit Abraham

Compassion only plagues those with hearts, much like a field of thorns only troubles those who bleed.

Richelle E. Goodrich

We live by encouragement and die without it -- slowly, sadly, and angrily.

Celeste Holm

An infinity with God has always been a circle, not a straight line past all your mistakes.

Shannon L. Alder

My other boy thing is that I sort of have a teeny tiny superpower. It’s not a jump-over-buildings, see-through-people’s-clothes, or lift-a-train-over-my-head one, which is good, because when you can do those kinds of things you probably have to live in a secret hideout instead of at home with your mom and dad. And I really like my room….

Charise Mericle Harper

Life is neither a glorious highlight reel nor a monstrous tragedy. Every day is a good day to live and a good day to die. Every day is also an apt time to learn and express joy and love for the entire natural world. Each day is an apt time to make contact with other people and express empathy for the entire world. Each day is perfect to accept with indifference all aspects of being.

Kilroy J. Oldster

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 can get away with it, but that's not what I mean). Show me the tyrants who have been great lovers.

Julian Barnes

I sometimes try to imagine what would have happened if we’d known the bonobo first and the chimpanzee only later—or not at all. The discussion about human evolution might not revolve as much around violence, warfare and male dominance, but rather around sexuality, empathy, caring and cooperation. What a different intellectual landscape we would occupy!

Frans de Waal

I stumble and fall.I weep and struggle to rise.My mom feels it all.

Richelle E. Goodrich

Why is it deemed justifiable and appropriate for cops/policeofficers to kill other cops (friendly–fire) and citizens?Why do cops kill?Are they not taught to maim or slow down someone runningor reaching for a weapon?If not, why not?Why do cops kill first and ask questions last?Why are police officers being military trained?What can we as citizens, taxpayers, and voters do to stop thesekillings and beatings of unarmed people?Why do we let this continue?How many more must die or get beat up before we realizesomething is wrong and needs to be changed?Will you, a friend, or a family member have to be killed or beatenby a cop before we realize that things have to change?Who's here to protect us from the cops when they decide to useexcessive force, shoot multiple shells, and/or murder us?

Obiora Embry

By acquiescing in an act that causes such suffering to a living creature, who among us is not diminished?

Rachel Carson

The true measure of a best friend is where they are when you “make” the biggest decision of your life, not where they were during the decision process.

Shannon L. Alder

Nothing changes until people decide to do the things they must, in order to bring about peace.

Shannon L. Alder

Allowing a person or thing to leave your life, without further pain is the basis of humanity. Everything else is the reason (theology).

Shannon L. Alder

When you see a person acting violently, ask yourself whether he knows how powerful he is. If he knew his power, would he feel the need to assert it?

Vironika Tugaleva

If you’re treating people poorly then you're not emulating God’s love. God always resides with the broken hearted.

Shannon L. Alder

Nowhere in the bible did it say, “Only show compassion and empathy to those you can trust.” If we did that, we would be burying homeless people every day.

Shannon L. Alder

Mostly we think of people with great authority as higher up, far away, hard to reach. But spiritual authority comes from compassion and emerges from deep inner solidarity with those who are 'subject' to authority. The one who is fully like us, who deeply understands our joys and pains or hopes and desires, and who is willing and able to walk with us, that is the one to whom we gladly give authority and whose 'subjects' we are willing to be.It is the compassionate authority that empowers, encourages, calls forth hidden gifts, and enables great things to happen. True spiritual authorities are located in the point of an upside-down triangle, supporting and holding into the light everyone they offer their leadership to.

Henri J.M. Nouwen

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

Dean Koontz

A best friend is the one person that doesn't leave you worse off by their actions or yours.

Shannon L. Alder

Storms don't come to teach us painful lessons, rather they were meant to wash us clean.

Shannon L. Alder

Depression can seem absurdly self aggrandizing to those who do not experience it, But that does not make it any less painful to those who do.

Richard Brookhiser

The day you find out who you are is when you look back and realize that it was never the words, rather your actions that defined you.

Shannon L. Alder

Unless we understand how the twists and turns of life operate to make us, we cannot comprehend who and what we are. Without self-awareness, we are blind to registering the intertexture of other people’s inner life. Gracefully enduring personal hardships expands our minds to extend sympathy and empathy for other people. By casting our personal life experiences into a supple storytelling casing, we create the translucent membrane that quarters the fusion of our flesh, nerves, blood, and bones. Self-understanding is an essential step in loving the entire world.

Kilroy J. Oldster

There's no room for hate and violence in this world. We must learn to be more kind, compassionate, empathetic, and sympathetic to humanity.

Germany Kent

What do you want with these special Jewish pains? I feel as close to the wretched victims of the rubber plantations in Putamayo and the blacks of Africa with whose bodies the Europeans play ball… I have no special corner in my heart for the ghetto: I am at home in the entire world, where there are clouds and birds and human tears.

Rosa Luxemburg

Should I, too, prefer the title of 'non-Jewish Jew'? For some time, I would have identified myself strongly with the attitude expressed by Rosa Luxemburg, writing from prison in 1917 to her anguished friend Mathilde Wurm:An inordinate proportion of the Marxists I have known would probably have formulated their own views in much the same way. It was almost a point of honor not to engage in 'thinking with the blood,' to borrow a notable phrase from D.H. Lawrence, and to immerse Jewishness in other and wider struggles. Indeed, the old canard about 'rootless cosmopolitanism' finds a perverse sort of endorsement in Jewish internationalism: the more emphatically somebody stresses that sort of rhetoric about the suffering of others, the more likely I would be to assume that the speaker was a Jew. Does this mean that I think there are Jewish 'characteristics'? Yes, I think it must mean that.

Christopher Hitchens

The exaggerated dopamine sensitivity of the introvert leads one to believe that when in public, introverts, regardless of its validity, often feel to be the center of (unwanted) attention hence rarely craving attention. Extroverts, on the other hand, seem to never get enough attention. So on the flip side it seems as though the introvert is in a sense very external and the extrovert is in a sense very internal - the introvert constantly feels too much 'outerness' while the extrovert doesn't feel enough 'outerness'.

Criss Jami

One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone.

Shannon L. Alder

Sometimes, you will go through awful trials in your life and then a miracle happens--God heals you. Don’t be disheartened when the people you love don’t see things like you do. There will be Pharisees in your life that will laugh it off, deny that it happened, or will mock your experience based on righteousness they think you don't possess. God won't deny you a spiritual experience because you are not a spiritual leader. He loves everyone equal. The only people that really matter in life are the people that can “see” your heart and rejoice with you.

Shannon L. Alder

Some of our friends are our friends only because we used to be friends.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Children arrive animists. They learn about life, themselves, and empathy by imagining the liveliness of everything they come into contact with.

S. Kelley Harrell

When you're living so intensely in your head there isn't any different between what you imagine and what actually takes place. Therefore, you're both omnipotent and powerless.

Chris Kraus

A word of consolation may sweetly touch the ear.Now and then a quiet songwill clear the mind of fear.A simple act of kindnesscan ease a load of care.Stories told in memorydiminish all despair.A whispered prayer of comfortdraws angel arms around.Counting blessings, great and small,helps gratitude abound.These acts, all sympathetic,will kindly play their part.But seldom do they dry the tearsshed mutely in the heart.

Richelle E. Goodrich

Empathy is a creative act. It is the act of imagining ourselves not only in another's shoes, but perhaps inhabiting their very heart and soul.

Michele Jennae

Blessed are those with cracks in their broken heart because that is how the light gets in.

Shannon L. Alder

The internet and online communication is the window into your world - but real life, in person communication / connection is the door.

Rasheed Ogunlaru

Highly sensitive people are too often perceived as weaklings or damaged goods. To feel intensely is not a symptom of weakness, it is the trademark of the truly alive and compassionate. It is not the empath who is broken, it is society that has become dysfunctional and emotionally disabled. There is no shame in expressing your authentic feelings. Those who are at times described as being a 'hot mess' or having 'too many issues' are the very fabric of what keeps the dream alive for a more caring, humane world. Never be ashamed to let your tears shine a light in this world.

Anthon St. Maarten

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 get in a situation is not the other person’s fault, rather it is our own hang-ups. A life filled with bias, hatred, judgment, insecurity, fear, delusion and self-righteousness can cloud the soul of anyone you meet. Our job is never to assume,instead it is to listen, communicate, ask questions then ask more, until we know the true depth of someone’s spirit.

Shannon L. Alder

It isn't what you will do for your children that makes you a great mother or father. It is what you do for God that isn't self serving, which sets the stage for children to learn to care about something other than what is expected.

Shannon L. Alder

Help your child see others' emotions as well as experiencing his or her own without imposing your judgment.

Iben Dissing Sandahl

Our stories hold unique inspiration for one another.

Lailah Gifty Akita

Appreciate youthfulness and empathize with elderly people.

Lailah Gifty Akita

The theory of positivity teaches us to, "always look on the bright side" and to, "point out the bright side to others". However, any highly empathic individual will know, that this mindset alienates us from other people. What connects us with other people is the ability to identify with what they are feeling and thinking, regardless of whether or not we've actually been in their place before. If you want to point someone out to the light, first you need to get into their dark cave with them, light a candle, and say, "Hey, I'm here with you and look, remember what the light feels like?" That's the kind of positivity that actually bears real change in people, in the world.

C. JoyBell C.

Empathy isn’t about you, understanding another person isn’t about you, feeling how another person feels isn’t about you... step outside of your own skin for a change. Respect another person because they are who they are; not because the other person is just like you. Your inability to understand, your inability to empathize, is not a fault on the part of the other person. It is in fact your own disability that you are choosing to live with.

C. JoyBell C.

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Empathy Quotes

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