Quotes About Empathy

Empathy is a human trait. But lots of humans exercise some traits more energetically than others. By "the usefulness of empathy" I mean the way in which a progressive might claim that empathy is a crucial aspect of any benign political system, and the way a conservative might argue that not only is it not necessary, but it might not even be all that helpful, in that regard.

In empathy, you don't speak at all. You speak with the eyes. You speak with your body. If you say any words at all, it's because you are not sure you are with the person. So you may say some words. But the words are not empathy. Empathy is when the other person feels the connection with what's alive in you.

Empathy and fellow feeling form the very basis of morality. The capacities for empathy, for feeling responsibility toward others and for reaching out to help them can be stunted or undermined early on, depending on a child's experiences in the home and neighborhood. It becomes too easy to turn our backs on fellow human beings... to have 'compassion fatigue.' Technology, we are learning, is not neutral.

...these stories are a kind of beacon. By making stories full of empathy and amusement and the sheer pleasure of discovering the world, these writers reassert the fact that we live in a world where joy and empathy and pleasure are all around us, there for the noticing.

When you need empathy, you cannot give empathy.

My mom always said that she didn't wear a red nose and big shoes because that's the reason people are scared of clowns. My dad is a sociology teacher, so he probably figured that out with her. Those are the things that are exaggerated, that don't give off the signals of humans. You know, if you draw a picture of a circle and ask somebody to feel empathy with the circle, they won't. But if you draw literally two, three dots inside the circle, like two eyes and a nose, you immediately feel empathy.

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?

I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.

Relational trust is built on movements of the human heart such as empathy, commitment, compassion, patience, and the capacity to forgive.

I have a great deal of empathy for anyone who's having a hard time. I believe this ability to see another's viewpoint has served me well as a writer.

Your empathy for other mothers is such a natural instinct and it's such a beautiful thing that we all connect, and we should all help each other.

Imagine what Ivanka Trump life has been like? She's been eaten alive by the media. I have empathy for that.

Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.

In the Communist period, the revolutionaries, the leaders were almost always - Che Guevara, people like that - they were always from the middle class and the educated. And empathy is a very powerful emotion.

[Nixon] reduced the meaning of his life to nothing but power. In the film, we gave this sad figure consciousness of what he was. We weren't right to do that - I don't think he did have that consciousness. But we did it for movie reasons - to create empathy.

I soak up personalities and energy. I can identify with anything because truthfully everything that makes up the world is characterized in some way in my family I feel, so my empathy is strong for mankind in general.

The only thing I can say in comparison is when I play comedy characters; I definitely put empathy in right up at the forefront. I think if you believe in someone because you not necessarily feel sorry for them, but you can see how they are the way they are and you can laugh with them, but rather than laugh at them, you are on their side and I think it's

Stuart Rojstaczer writes with enormous wit, style and empathy, and The Mathematician's Shiva is a big-hearted, rollickingly funny novel that's impossible to put down. A tremendous debut.

I've always been a very rebellious, philosophical person, so my mother set the foundation for my appreciation for nature and my empathy for other people. But then, being a sort of rebellious, philosophical thinker, I'm always looking for new ways to shake things up. So I feel like I'm really lucky to be alive in a time where there's so much opportunity to disrupt and shake it up. It's sort of a combination between that and having the foundation that my mother gave me.

'Empathy' is the latest code word for liberal activism, for treating the Constitution as malleable clay to be kneaded and molded in whatever form justices want. It represents an expansive view of the judiciary in which courts create policy that couldn't pass the legislative branch or, if it did, would generate voter backlash.

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

In my book ["Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age], I argue that we're vulnerable to technologies.There's a 40 percent decline in all markers for empathy among college students, with most of it taking place in the past years.

Singing with others is an unmediated, shared experience as each person feels the same music reverberating in their individual bodies. Singing is part of our humanity; it is embodied empathy.

What we're trying to do in conversational intelligence is not only define that trust continuum for people, not only helping them notice, which is so important, what's happening in them and others when distrust lives, but also how to bring people in trust. When they do, what happens, this part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex is loaded with wisdom, integrity, strategy, insights, empathy, foresight. It's beautiful. It's so designed for that, and often it's turned off because people don't have trust with each other.

Empathy comes from being empathized with.

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

People with lower incomes tend to give a greater percentage of their incomes to help others and show greater empathy and compassion - perhaps because they know they might face the same circumstances.

The Democrats are as concerned about raising our kids and making sure that the values of empathy and hard work and discipline and self-respect are instilled in our children, and I've got a six-year-old daughter and a three-year-old daughter, and I'm not afraid to talk about how I want to provide them with the sort of cultural framework that's going to allow them to be successful, happy people.

I think I'm an actor because I have very strong imagination and empathy. I never studied acting, but those two qualities are exactly the qualities that make for an activist.

nothing is more important than empathy for another human being's suffering. Nothing. Not a career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we're going to survive with dignity.

There's a gap somehow between empathy and activism. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of 'soul force' - something that emanates from a deep truth inside of us and empowers us to act. Once you identify your inner genius, you will be able to take action, whether it's writing a check or digging a well.

Learning a foreign language, and the culture that goes with it, is one of the most useful things we can do to broaden the empathy and imaginative sympathy and cultural outlook of children.

Having pets can teach us a lot of things. For kids, they are often their first lesson in responsibility, and being responsible for the well-being of another living thing is actually great for anyone, kid or adult. It teaches empathy, consistency, and so much more - especially if that pet is a dog.

Chris Guest has his own form. It's a way of working that is really intense and you can commit a lot and you focus a lot. You get to bring a lot. You get to bring things maybe you haven't seen before. You're asked to care a great deal for these people who you're playing and create heart and empathy.

When you are born without the ordinary feelings and emotions shared by most other human beings, life looks different to you. It seems at times like a movie you’re walking through, more a spectator than a participant. There is above all a lack of empathy with most of mankind, a sense of detachment. But with detachment comes perspective. The less you care, the more you know, and the more you know the less you care.

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.

Like musicians who can read and write complicated scores in a world without sounds, for us mathematics is a source of delight, excitement, and even controversy which are hard to share with non mathematicians. In our small micro-cosmos we should ever seek the right balance between competition and solidarity, criticism and empathy, exclusion and inclusion.

True compassion comes from free will by drawing empathy from within.

Empathy is the wellspring of creativity.

By “empathy,” some people mean everything that is good - compassion, kindness, warmth, love, being a mensch, changing the world - and I'm for all of those things. I'm not a monster.

The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be alone with oneself. To be gentle with oneself. To look at the world without blinders on. To observe and withstand what one sees. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks. To be willing to fail - not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime.

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

Love is that enviable state that knows no envy or vanity, only empathy and a longing to be greater than oneself.

I worry that if whatever pops into your head at any instant immediately goes online, you lose the crucial time for your thoughts to simmer and evolve and build up nuance, depth and empathy.

You have to have sympathy for and an empathy with a character in order to play them.

I believe that if you can discover something of the truth of a person, then you will start to understand, and to understand is to move towards, if not like, then at least an empathy of some kind.

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.