Quotes about Empathy

You can't just check out and think it will all be over. It won't be over for anyone who loves you. You'll only leave them to run after the pieces that scatter in the angry wind. You'll leave them desperately trying to solve the problems you wouldn't . . . all while plugging their own wounds. Even if you're like me, single without children, you could impact generations.

One man's religion neither harms nor helps another man.

We live in the world with you. We do not forsake forum or bath or workshop, or inn, or market, or any other place of commerce. We sail with you, fight with you, farm with you.

Let us not be justices of the peace, but angels of peace.

I prayed earnestly for this Sister who had caused me so much struggle, but this was not enough for me. I tried to do everything I possibly could for her, and when tempted to answer her sharply, I hastened to give her a friendly smile and talk about something else, for, as it says in The Imitation, "It is better to leave everyone to his own way of thinking than begin an argument." (Imit., III, xliv, 1).

I said before, that I have learnt much by guiding others. In the first place I see that all souls have more or less the same battles to fight, and on the other hand, that one soul differs widely from another, so each must be dealt with differently.

It is for us to console our Lord, and not for Him to console us.

If we allow ourselves even for a moment to contemplate the vast weight of suffering in the world, we will easily be overwhelmed with grief. This is why we develop the habit and self-protective instinct of overlooking the suffering around us.

Serving brings great rewards, but sometimes those rewards come gift-wrapped in trying situations. Those who lovingly serve others can end up feeling like crash dummies designed specifically to discover the heat, force, and pain tolerance of some new product.

Ministers of reconciliation must be patient and longsuffering. They must be characterized by meekness such that they do not think more highly of themselves than they ought (Matt. 5:5). They must hold up under the weight of disappointments, frustrations, loss, attack, slander, and offense (Matt. 18:21—22; Rom. 15:1). By carrying each others' burdens we fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2).

Resolved, To act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings, as others, and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart, and that is softness of head.