quotations about empathy
True empathy is always welcomed, compared with sympathy which may be rejected, because of an implicit or deliberate act of movement 'towards', rather than 'being with' and almost 'being one with'.
MURRAY COX
Structuring the Therapeutic Process
I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.
ROGER EBERT
Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2011
Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection - or compassionate action.
DANIEL GOLEMAN
Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships
We need empathy, we need the eyes that still can weep.
LYDIA MILLET
Oh Pure and Radiant Heart
The solution to nearly every problem in the world comes down to greater awareness, compassion, and empathy.
BRYANT MCGILL
Voice of Reason
I feel you
You know me
I'm moving in
Your empathy
WALDECK
"It Comes from You", The Night Garden
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view -- until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.
HARPER LEE
To Kill a Mockingbird
We, like you, are people who want to build a home, to plant a tree, to love, live side by side with you in dignity, in empathy, as human beings, as free men.
YITZHAK RABIN
Knesset Speech, September 21, 1993
I like the term "empathy" because it has spiritual overtones. A term like "sympathy" or "allegiance" might be more precise, but I want the chosen term to be slightly mystical, to suggest that we might not be able to fully understand what goes on between us and others, that we should leave open the possibility that the relationship can't be represented in a digital database.
JARON LANIER
You Are Not a Gadget
Bursting with empathy, I'm feeling everything
The weight of the world on my shoulders
Hope my tears don't freak you out
They're just kinda coming
KACEY MUSGRAVES
"Mother", Golden Hour
We are a feelingless people. If we could really feel, the pain would be so great that we would stop all the suffering ... we would go into the streets and stop the war, stop slavery, stop the prisons, stop the killing, stop destruction.
JULIAN BECK
The Life of the Theatre
I'd rather deal with your temper
Than feel your careless empathy
QUADRON
"Pressure"
When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival.
YANN MARTEL
Life of Pi
Forging the kind of alliance between reason and emotion that produces empathy is always a work in progress, but it is an achievement worth striving for.
BARRY SCHWARTZ & KENNETH SHARPE
Practical Wisdom
The comforter's head never aches.
ITALIAN PROVERB
Heavy the head that bears the crown
Of my mistaken empathy
ALL TIME LOW
"Paint You Wings"
One of his greatest talents was empathy; no sadist can aspire to perfection without that diagnostic ability.
VICTOR VINGE
A Fire Upon the Deep
What dooms our best efforts to cultivate empathy and compassion is always, of course, other people.
TIM KREIDER
We Learn Nothing
You know, there's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit - the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes; to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us - the child who's hungry, the steelworker who's been laid-off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town. When you think like this - when you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers - it becomes harder not to act; harder not to help.
BARACK OBAMA
speech, Aug. 11, 2006
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 you've just read a book by one of those people.
NEIL GAIMAN
"Neil Gaiman Talks About the Value of Libraries", Children's Book Council, November 18, 2014