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Empathy Quotes


"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."


"You're Not AloneWhen I was speaking to thousands of teenagers a year, I interviewed my niece Sarah Jane, who was a high school student at the time. I asked, "What do you think would be helpful for kids to know that would make a difference in their lives. She said, "I was terrified, but I put on a happy face so that no one else would know. What I didn't realize is that everyone else was as scared as I was." Knowing others may feel the same way as you can make social situations feel less awkward. When approaching new people, find ways to put those at ease who might be reluctant to approach us otherwise. Where Can You Begin to Mix, Mingle & Glow?"


"Neuroscience makes us connect with each other at an emotional level. It makes us make friends. It makes us dream more positively. It makes us more optimistic about ourselves and the world even in our darkest days. It makes us achieve our goal endowed with strength even through immense miseries. It allows us to attain the subjective reality of our fellow humans. Imbued with the understanding of the mind we can walk in the shoes of other people."


"I couldn't think of anyone I'd ever felt sorry for. There were plenty of kids I was envious of. There were others I achingly admired, but that might simply be another form of jealousy. Then there were those I feared, dreaded. And the worst of them, the man who shamed me. I could see my father's angry features looming over my mother. I could clearly picture her beside him in his truck, cowering against the door while he belittled and assaulted her. I guess I did know someone I felt sorry for."


"Those who are without compassion cannot see what is seen with the eyes of compassion."



"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 may be victories or necessary steps. Then the personal matters; it's home; but you can travel in and out of it, rather than being marooned there. The leprosy specialist Paul Brand wrote, "Pain, along with its cousin touch, is distributed universally on the body, providing a sort of boundary of self," but empathy, solidarity, allegiance--the nerves that run out into the world--expand the self beyond its physical bounds."


"An empath is capable of taking on the grief of another in order to lessen their suffering. In order to not be consumed with pain, an empath should have an outlet for that pain lest they lose themselves in feeling for others."


"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view."


"How far you go in life and in your career is dependent on how far you can think good thoughts!"


"We often get caught up in our own reactions and forget the vulnerability of the person in front of us."


"Empathy is the ability to step outside of your own bubble and into the bubbles of other people. Empathy is the ability that allows us to be useful creatures on this planet; without empathy, we are a waste of oxygen in this world. Without empathy, we are lower than animals. Empathy is the ability that allows us the perception of things around us, outside of ourselves; so a person without empathy is a limited human being, someone who will only live half of a life."


"We can learn the art of fierce compassion - redefining strength, deconstructing isolation and renewing a sense of community, practicing letting go of rigid us-vs.-them thinking - while cultivating power and clarity in response to difficult situations."


"[T]he unsympathetic assessments we make of others are usually the result of nothing more sinister than our habit of looking at them in the wrong way, through lenses clouded by distraction, exhaustion and fear, which blind us to the fact that they are really, despite a thousand differences, just altered versions of ourselves: fellow fragile, uncertain, flawed beings likewise craving love and in urgent need of forgiveness."


"Vulnerability in the face of constant change is what we share, whatever our present condition."


"If my mind was in your body going through the same circumstances. I would act differently, and likewise. Judging in nature is separation."


"With a book he was regardless of time..."


"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."


"If you can't see some part of yourself in every single person you encounter, then you're not looking closely enough, at the person or at yourself."


"Don't just listen to people crying, hear the reasons why they cry."


"We are born with the innate capacity to express empathy. Experiencing our own cuts and bruises, encountering our own difficulties and disappointments, expands our cognitive world and rouses the universal desire to understand and comfort other people in pain."


"Everyone is overcoming something, be gentle."


"When someone is cruel, harsh, mean, to not take their words personally is one thing, but to hear the silent cry within those words is another. This sort of perspective can not only liberate us from crippling self-doubt in the face of criticism, it can also liberate us from automatically becoming blind participants in the interaction patterns that the cruel person has become accustomed to-a favour we do for the other person as much as for ourselves."


"In youth, the greatest success is to see the world from the eyes of the aged people and to feel exactly how they feel."


"When you visualized a man or woman carefully, you could always begin to feel pity " that was a quality God's image carried with it. When you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate. Hate was just a failure of imagination."


"Before complaining about your burden of life, you must first try to see what other people's burden of life is!"


"In return, Giovanni told me that empathizing Italians say L'ho provato sulla mia pelle, which means 'I have experienced that on my own skin.' Meaning, I have also been burned or scarred in this way, and I know exactly what you're going through."


"Then I give her a grim shake of my head and say aloud, 'This blows ass.' She nods sympathetically. She doesn't understand, but of course, in her way she understands completely."


"The sympathy which is reverent with what it cannot understand is worth its weight in gold."


"It is when suffering finds a voice andsets our nerves quivering that this pity comes troubling us."


"Compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use."


"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 (and rocks and trees), are desirous of being kind, at all times? Of course not! Empathy often hurts, and is often difficult. But we experience this difficulty, because we are human beings, because human beings are designed to connect with other living and non-living things!"


"The idea that I can't share my problems with other people makes me not give a shit about their problems."


"If only this great concern we have for our own sensitive feelings expanded to encompass the feelings of our fellow men."


"Maybe you receive pain selfishly - thinking only of yourself. The cycle of pain wounds every participant."


"The pain of humanity's most maltreated victims echoes deep within each of us, in the form of our shame or ignorance."


"As a kid my heart would break for the villains."


"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."


"Empathize with others. You may easily get into a situation where you need the understanding of others."
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