Quotes About Empathy

The act of compassion begins with full attention, just as rapport does. You have to really see the person. If you see the person, then naturally, empathy arises. If you tune into the other person, you feel with them. If empathy arises, and if that person is in dire need, then empathic concern can come. You want to help them, and then that begins a compassionate act. So I'd say that compassion begins with attention.

With empathy you know in your heart that it's not a sign of weakness to attempt to understand that the people we call terrorists have placed the same label on us, and that the use of force will create a counter force, a never-ending saga of killing and hate. Ending war involves cultivating empathy in our policies and the love of God in our hearts. As the Native Americans reminded us: No tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves.

APD is primarily defined as a lack of empathy,' I said. I'd looked it up too, a few months ago. Empathy is what allows people to interpret emotion, the same way ears interpret sounds; without it you become emotionally deaf. 'It means I don't connect emotionally with other people. I wondered if he was going to pick that one.' 'How do you even know that?' she said. 'You're fifteen years old, for goodness' sake. You should be ... I don't know, chasing girls or playing video games.' 'You're telling a sociopath to chase girls?

If empathy channels our optimism, we will see the empathy and the diseases and the poor school. We will answer with our innovations and we will surprise the pessimists.

Empathy is like a universal solvent. Any problem immersed in empathy becomes soluble. It is effective as a way of anticipating and resolving interpersonal problems, whether this is a marital conflict, an international conflict, a problem at work, difficulties in a friendship, political deadlocks, a family dispute, or a problem with a neighbor.

Failure to summon forth the courage to risk a nondogmatic and nonevasive stance on such crucial existential matters can also blur our ethical vision. If our actions in the world are to stem from an encounter with what is central in life, they must be unclouded by either dogma or prevarication. Agnosticism is no excuse for indecision. If anything, it is a catalyst for action; for in shifting concern away from a future life and back to the present, it demands an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of fear and hope.

Writing really evokes empathy in a way very few things can do.

I also grew to love Nancy Reagan in a certain way. I learned more - certainly I learned more bad stuff that I had known about in greater detail, but I also got a lot of empathy.

Once you've created a connection of empathy, rational arguments can play a supportive role.

Empathy is the greatest virtue. From it, all virtues flow. Without it, all virtues are an act.

The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems.

A sociopath can imitate emotions, where a psychopath really doesn't have that capacity. They can't fool people into thinking anything and they're usually lacking major empathy for anybody besides themselves.

Like works of literature, mathematical ideas help expand our circle of empathy, liberating us from the tyranny of a single, parochial point of view. Numbers, properly considered, make us better people.

It was a strange thing, this feeling of empathy. He'd never experienced it before. He realized that what hurt this woman hurt him as well, that what made her bleed caused a hemorrhage of pain within his soul.

I do have a side as a citizen, and I've always expressed it, and that's where I've gotten into misunderstandings, because some people see me as a leftist nut or whatever. A conspiracy nut. All that stuff. These are definitions that don't really apply to a dramatist, because a dramatist is working from empathy.

Further, bearing up under our own burdens can help us develop a reservoir of empathy for the problems others face.

The attempt to be an ideal parent, that is, to behave correctly toward the child, to raise her correctly, not to give to little ortoo much, is in essence an attempt to be the ideal child--well behaved and dutiful--of one's own parents. But as a result of these efforts the needs of the child go unnoticed. I cannot listen to my child with empathy if I am inwardly preoccupied with being a good mother; I cannot be open to what she is telling me.

You want to teach all kids the skills that are on the better side of human nature: empathy, appreciating how one's behavior is affecting other people, resolving disagreements in ways that do not involve conflict, taking another's perspective, honesty.

We miss extra bits of knowledge that can add value to our lives. We sort of lack empathy because we're multitasking all the time.

Successful hunting, it could be said, is an act of terminal empathy: the kill depends on how successfully a hunter inserts himself into the umwelt of his prey--even to the point of disguising himself as that animal and mimicking its behavior.

The root of compassion is not empathy; that is kindness. Kindness is great, but it is not the ultimate compassion. Ultimate compassion relieves the suffering that comes from separateness. The suffering that comes from separateness is relieved only when you are fully present with another person, not when you are separately present.

Empathy is the poor man's cocaine, and love is just a chemical by any other name

Our ability to offer empathy can allow us to stay vulnerable, defuse potential violence, help us hear the word 'no' without taking it as a rejection, revive lifeless conversation, and even hear the feelings and needs expressed through silence.

A novel is not an allegory.... It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing.

We live in a world where joy and empathy and pleasure are all around us, there for the noticing.

Empathy comes from being empathized with.

If you and I are not having a dialogue, when you're having an argument, the reason the argument happen is because we are not listening to each other. Then, the argument comes in, but if we truly listen instead of hearing, argument will not happen. Then, we'll empathize, and then once the empathy kicks in, you will be much more inclining with my viewpoint and I'll be inclining with your viewpoint, and that's what is missing in organizations.

I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.

It's very rare in our lives that we're like "Ooh, I'm going to really screw this family up." You just don't. You work from a place of need, like I want to finish this movie or I want to feel loved at that moment or I need empathy right now. And then, you do things that are questionable.

I like people who possess either deep mastery or deep empathy, but not as much as I like those who possess both.

Hillary Clinton`s unfavorable ratings at an all-time high at 60 percent. That Donald Trump is trusted more than she by the American voter. There`s a very important attribute that goes to empathy and compassion in connective tissue with voters. The question of who cares more about people like you? That`s a measurement that President Barack Obama beat Governor Mitt Romney on, like, 82 to 15. Clinton and Trump were tied on that. That`s a remarkable figure when you think about how Democrats normally have an advantage in that way.

What is the empathy deficit? The inability of people to stand in other folks shoes. It's hard to empathize with people who have different values than you

I think we could benefit from world history that is specifically taught in a multi-faceted fashion that allows for an understanding that perspectives on truth can be very different. I'm an advocate of an approach that endeavors to foster empathy and which tries to find a common humanity across the divide.

Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person.

Films to the degree that they glorify mindlessness and short attention span they are bad, to the degree that they encourage empathy with people not like ourselves and encourage us to think about life, they are good.

I fear that we are beginning to design ourselves to suit digital models of us, and I worry about a leaching of empathy and humanity in that process.

I identify with other women because of my gender, and I identify with other women if they are mothers because I'm a mother, too. It's very simple. It's nothing complicated, it's not rocket science. It's about empathy. It's about understanding that what happens with one person is potentially what happens to you, and seeing yourself in someone else's shoes. Fundamentally, we are all in the same place: we're born, we live, and we're going to die. In between, we'll have joy and we'll have sadness.

empathy, the least comfortable of human emotions.

I think empathy's a terrible danger for a writer.

Any tear shed in sharing the heartbeat of God, any tear shed through Christlike loving empathy with our fellowmen, any tear born of the yearning constraint of the Holy Spirit is a tear by which we serve the Lord. Nothing pleases Christ more than for us to share with Him His burden for the world and its people. Nothing so weds us to the heart of Christ as our tears shed as we intercede for lost ones with Him. Then truly we become people after God's own heart. Then we begin to know what it is to be Christ's prayer partners.

Photography is an investigation of both the outer and the inner worlds. The first experiences with the camera involve looking at the world beyond the lens, trusting the instrument will 'capture' something 'seen.' The terms shoot and take are not accidental; they represent an attitude of conquest and appropriation. Only when the photographer grows into perception and creative impulse does the term make define a condition of empathy between the external and the internal events.

Fiction and essays can create empathy for the theoretical stranger.

I think it's really healing to see movies that are based on true stories. It builds so much more compassion and empathy.

Who taught me that animals were put on this Earth for food? Who taught me to disrespect animals and view them as mere commodities? Who stole my compassion, my empathy and my conscience? Who lied to me? Who instilled this vicious mindset of human-to-animal exploitation as standard operating procedure?

Empathy works so well because it does not require a solution. It requires only understanding.

The state of empathy, or being empathic, is to perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person.

My worst vice is also my best vice. It's my empathy and my love for people-it can wear me out. I rarely can turn a person in need down or because I love people, I love energy.

Simple inattention kills empathy, let alone compassion. So the first step in compassion is to notice the other's need. It all begins with the simple act of attention.