Quotes about Empathy

The wretch who digs the mine for bread, or ploughs, that others may be fed, feels less fatigued than that decreed to him who cannot think or read.

To live with another within the compass of one heart: I must move to the side, must make myself small, so that the other has space and does not feel crowded.

We may not ever understand why we suffer or be able to control the forces that cause our suffering, but we can have a lot to say about what suffering does to us, and what sort of people we become because of it. Pain makes some people bitter and envious. It makes others sensitive and compassionate. It is the result, not the cause, of pain that makes some experiences of pain meaningful and others empty and destructive.

Perhaps that is the only cure for jealousy, to realize that the people we resent and envy for having what we lack, probably have wounds and scars of their own. They may even be envying us.

I believe strongly that one of the primary goals of religion is to teach people to like themselves and feel good about themselves. All my experience has taught me that people who feel good about themselves will be more generous, more forgiving of others, less defensive about their mistakes, more assessable to change, and better able to cope with misfortune and adversity.

Instead of exhausting ourselves trying to reshape the world to fit our dreams, we are better off using our strength to comfort one another in a world that is almost certain to mock our dreams and break our hearts.

Perhaps they suspected that I thought less of them because I knew it. (I'm too aware of human frailty to have let that happen. If anything, I thought more of them for wanting to face up to what they had done and for trying to change.)

If a person has known love, has felt and given love, that person's life has made a difference.

when He tells Moses, "When you go to Pharaoh, I will be with you" (italics added). For me, that is God's name, the essence of what He is about. God is the one who is with us when we have to do something hard. He is the one who is with us when we are tempted to feel that the world has abandoned us. He is the one who is with us when we feel alone in the valley of the shadow.

when you are able to forgive yourself and to forgive people around you for not being perfect, I will recognize you as My child.

My list of the worst offenses against God would begin with hurting another person, cheating another person, shaming another person.

We need other people, and we need to be needed by other people, in order to be who we might be, who we yearn to be.