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Empathy Quotes
"You only know how you feel, and you can only guess how others feel."
52
"To be sympathetic without discrimination is so very debilitating."
51
"The only way to change someone's mind is to connect with them from the heart."
49
"I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have."
48
"But it's hard to explain, Mitch. Now that I'm suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims... and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But--how can I put this?--I'm almost... drawn to them."
48
"If a man is tongue-tied, don't laugh at him, but, rather, feel pity for him, as you would for a man with broken legs."
47
"Like officer Dave.He's never said much about his life, but I can tell he's scarred. And he knows I'm scarred too. The wounded always recognize the wounded. We can smell each other."
47
"I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with someone even if they could have. I need to know these people exist."
46
"To us post-moderns, empathy is a stranger in a strange land."
46
"People die from lack of shared empathy and affinity. By establishing social connectedness, we give hope a chance and the other can become heaven. ['Le ciel c'est l'autre']"
46
"You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them."
44
"Men who are afraid to feel must keep women around to do their feeling for them while dismissing us for the same supposedly "inferior" capacity to feel deeply. But in this way also, men deny themselves their own essential humanity, becoming trapped in dependency and fear."
44
"Feel pity for the person who judged you rudely. For they are selfish in their judgment, trying to make their life feel just a little bit better. It was never about you it was all about them."
44
"Indeed, when I came to Italy, I expected to encounter a certain amount of resentment, but have received instead empathy from most Italians. In any reference to George Bush, people only nod to Berlusconi, saying","We understand how it is - we have one, too."
44
"Cammie!' I'll never forget the tone of Macey's voice in that moment. 'Cam,' she said slowly, moving toward me, 'I know how it feels to be watched every second of every day. I know what it's like to trust fewer and fewer people until it seems like you are completely alone in the world. I know you think the only things that are left in your life are the bad things. I know what you're feeling, Cam.' Her hands were on my shoulders. Her blue eyes were staring into mine. 'I know."
43
"A woman who can't forgive should never have more than a nodding acquaintance with a man."
43
"There's nothing wrong or evil about having a bad day. There's everything wrong with making others have to have it... with you."
42
"But she remembered having told Archer once that you could not measure love on a scale of degrees, and now she understood that it was the same with pain. Pain might escalate upward and, just when you thought you'd reached your limit, begin to spread sideways, and spill out, and touch other people, and mix with their pain. And grow larger, but somehow less oppressive. She had thought herself trapped in a place outside the ordinary feeling lives of people; she had not noticed how many people were trapped in that place with her."
41
"When we see somebody in a difficult situation, we can understand them only if we had the same experience and had lived through it. Otherwise, we just think we know."
41
"We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path."
40
"When we stake a claim to the needs and wants of our life, we may easily fail to live up to the standards of others. Empathy and connectedness, however, might bridge the gap, by stirring our consciousness of the sensitive queries and by assessing the intricate framework of our surroundings with their countless, prickly nitty-gritties. ['Absence of Desire']"
40
"You shouldn't judge someone until you've walk a mile through an underground tunnel in her uncomfortable shoes."
38
"Tears are a form of communication - like speech - and require a listener."
38
"It is unfortunate that many people today cannot realize the need around them."
36
"He came up straight to her father, whose hands he took and wrung without a word - holding them in his for a minute or two, during which time his face, his eyes, his look, told of more sympathy than could be put into words."
36
"The healing power of even the most microscopic exchange with someone who knows in a flash precisely what you're talking about because she experienced that thing too cannot be overestimated."
35
"When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them."
34
"The tears of my eyes watered your heart but failed to evoke a response from the barren grounds of what beats in you. They will still come and I will welcome them because they contain you."
34
"When somebody is angry with us we draw a halo around his or her head in our minds. Does the person stop being angry then? Well we don't know! We know though that when we draw a halo around a person suddenly the person starts to look like an angel to us."
34
"Don't judge someone's choices without first knowing their reason."
33
"We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone."
32
"I have a few friends who are confined to wheelchairs for access and mobility. I don't want to always be looking down at them while they are looking up at me. To enjoy a meaningful conversation, I'm quick to kneel beside them or pull up a chair to talk at the same height. Begin to recognize the orientation of other people and align yourself with their body position and physical needs so that you may connect on a more balanced and effective level."
32
"Everyone is doing the best they can with what they know, and we are all here to learn and grow."
30
"There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs."
30
"Still, this was on the order of a minor miracle, running across someone to whom you can express your feeling so clearly, so completely. Most people go their entire lives without meeting a person like that. It would have been mistake to label this "love". It was more like total empathy."
29
"Understanding begets empathy and compassion even for the meanest beggar - Oromis."
28
"He asked me for a light to light his cigarette, and by reason of unaware, it is he that really gave light to me, made me realize how much alike we all are, breathing the same air, beating the same red blood, separated through some fortune and shame in the way of humanity."
28
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