EMPATHY QUOTES

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


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


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


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


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

Tags: Julian Beck


When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival.

YANN MARTEL

Life of Pi


I'd rather deal with your temper
Than feel your careless empathy

QUADRON

"Pressure"


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"


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


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