Quotes about Empathy

Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn't think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn't bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and said: "Wouldn't you like to have that?" Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?

If the holy conversation, a generous discourse, is to occur, the labeling must cease. We are not dealing with labels, we are talking to people.

I grew up hearing stories about my grandmother - my mother's mother - who used to go to villages in India in her little VW bug. My grandmother would take a bullhorn and make sure women in these villages knew how to access birth control.

If I say, 'I forgive you,' I have implicitly said you have done something wrong to me. But what forgiveness is at its heart is both saying that justice has been violated and not letting that violation count against the offender.

The irony is that 'looking down on everybody else' is a violation of the law of love, which, according to Jesus, is the absolute essence of righteousness.

Fundamental violations of human rights always lead to people feeling less and less human.

Nothing good ever comes of violence.

When language fails, violence becomes a language; I never had that feeling.

Our most important task is to transform our consciousness so that violence is no longer an option for us in our personal lives, that understanding that a world of peace is possible only if we relate to each other as peaceful beings, one individual at a time.

Positional leaders ignore the fact that every person has hopes, dreams, desires, and goals of his own. And leaders must bring their vision and the aspirations of the people they lead together in a way that benefits everyone.

It's so easy to see people as less than they are, as less than people.

Don't tell your problems to people: eighty percent don't care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them.