Barack Obama Quotes About Empathy

• Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes, to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins. And it's up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.

  Barack Obama

  Character, Eye, Shoes

  Obama Holds a Town Hall in Istanbul, www.washingtonpost.com. April 7, 2009.

• We live in a culture that discourages empathy. A culture that too often tells us our principle goal in life is to be rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained.

  Barack Obama

  Compassion, Goal, Empathy

• Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.

  Barack Obama

  Character, Empathy, Quality

• Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let’s use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.

  Barack Obama

  Dream, Imagination, Empathy

  Speech at the 'Together We Thrive: Tucson and America' Memorial, delivered 12 January 2011, McKale Memorial Center, University of Arizona, Tucson

• But it will depend on young people like you being open to new ideas and new possibilities. And it will require young people like you never to stereotype or assume the worst about other people.

  Barack Obama

  Ideas, People, Empathy

  "Obama Holds a Town Hall in Istanbul". Speech in a Town Hall, Istanbul, Turkey, www.washingtonpost.com. April 7, 2009.

• The world doesn't just revolve around you. There's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Thinking, Empathy

• 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

  Barack Obama

  Shoes, People, Empathy

• That's where peace begins - not just in the plans of leaders, but in the hearts of people. Not just in some carefully designed process, but in the daily connections - that sense of empathy that takes place among those who live together in this land and in this sacred city of Jerusalem.

  Barack Obama

  Heart, Land, Cities

  Remarks of President Barack Obama To the People of Israel, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. March 21, 2013.

• In the Muslim world, this notion that somehow everything is the fault of the Israelis lacks balance - because there's two sides to every question. That doesn't mean that sometimes one side has done something wrong and should not be condemned. But it does mean there's always two sides to an issue. I say the same thing to my Jewish friends, which is you have to see the perspective of the Palestinians. Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins. And it's up to you to make that happen.

  Barack Obama

  Mean, Eye, Two Sides

  "Obama Holds a Town Hall in Istanbul". www.washingtonpost.com. April 7, 2009.

• As you travel through the Middle East what keeps on striking home to me is how similar everyone is, and yet the degree to which we can find differences to fight wars over. It requires a great deal of empathy, I think, between various sides to overcome this history and live in peace.

  Barack Obama

  War, Home, Fighting

• It is very important for I think those of us who desperately want peace, who see war as, at some level, a break-down, a manifestation of human weakness, to understand that sometimes it’s also necessary – and you know, to – to be able to balance two ideas at the same time; that we are constantly striving for peace, we are doubling up on our diplomacy, we are going to actively engage, we are going to try to see the world through other people’s eyes and not just our own.

  Barack Obama

  War, Eye, Thinking

  "Obama Talks With PBS’ Jim Lehrer". "NewsHour" with Jim Lehrer, talkingpointsmemo.com. December 23, 2009.

• Let us join together across denominations, religions and cultures to make a habit of empathy and reach out to those most in need. To share the blessings we enjoy and to advance the cause of peace in all corners of our world.

  Barack Obama

  Blessing, Our World, Empathy

• And let me say this as a politician I can promise you this, political leaders will never take risks if the people do not push them to take some risks. You must create the change that you want to see.

  Barack Obama

  People, Leader, Political

  "Obama Asks Young Israelis To Push For Peace". "Morning Edition" with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. March 22, 2013.

• Ultimately, peace is just not about politics. It's about attitudes; about a sense of empathy; about breaking down the divisions that we create for ourselves in our own minds and our own hearts that don't exist in any objective reality, but that we carry with us generation after generation. And I know, because America, we, too, have had to work hard over the decades, slowly, gradually, sometimes painfully, in fits and starts, to keep perfecting our union.

  Barack Obama

  Attitude, Hard Work, Heart

  Remarks by President Obama and Mrs. Obama in Town Hall with Youth of Northern Ireland, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. June 17, 2013.

• They will tell you that the Americans who sleep in the streets and beg for food got there because they’re all lazy or weak of spirit. That the inner-city children who are trapped in dilapidated schools can’t learn and won’t learn and so we should just give up on them entirely. That the innocent people being slaughtered and expelled from their homes half a world away are somebody else’s problem to take care of.

  Barack Obama

  Children, Giving Up, Home

  Barack Obama's Commencement Address at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, www.northwestern.edu. June 19, 2006.

• I'm determined to disagree with people without being disagreeable. That's part of the empathy. Empathy doesn't just extend to cute little kids. You have to have empathy when you're talking to some guy who doesn't like black people.

  Barack Obama

  Cute, Kids, Talking

• On my recent trip to Israel, I had the opportunity to visit Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust memorial, and reaffirm our collective responsibility to confront anti-Semitism, prejudice, and intolerance across the world. On this Yom Hashoah, we must accept the full responsibility of remembrance, as nations and as individuals-not simply to pledge "never again," but to commit ourselves to the understanding, empathy and compassion that is the foundation of peace and human dignity.

  Barack Obama

  Responsibility, Opportunity, Compassion

  Statement from the President on Yom Hashoah, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. April 08, 2013.

• The biggest deficit that we have in our society and in the world right now is an empathy deficit. We are in great need of people being able to stand in somebody else's shoes and see the world through their eyes.

  Barack Obama

  Eye, Shoes, People

  "As a society, are we losing our empathy?" by Catherine Conroy, www.irishtimes.com. January 30, 2017.

• I hope you don’t listen to this. I hope you choose to broaden, and not contract, your ambit of concern.

  Barack Obama

  Empathy, Contracts, Concern

  Barack Obama's Commencement Address at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, www.northwestern.edu. June 19, 2006.

• Each side has legitimate aspirations - and that's part of what makes peace so hard. And the deadlock will only be broken when each side learns to stand in the other's shoes; each side can see the world through the other's eyes. That's what we should be encouraging. That's what we should be promoting.

  Barack Obama

  Eye, Shoes, Broken

• My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another's heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.

  Barack Obama

  Powerful, Heart, Empathy

  Barack Obama (2007). “Dreams From My Father”, p.10, Canongate Books

• We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old - and that's the criterion by which I'll be selecting my judges.

  Barack Obama

  Mom, Mother, Teenage

  "Empathy and the Supreme Court" by Jonah Goldberg, articles.latimes.com. April 13, 2010.

• That is another theme in the book [Dreams from My Father]. How do we exercise more empathy in our public discourse? How do we get the black to see through the eyes of the white? Or the citizen to see through the eyes of the immigrant? Or the straight to see through the eyes of the gay? That has always been a struggle in our politics.

  Barack Obama

  Dream, Father, Book

• 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.

  Barack Obama

  Daughter, Children, Kids

  Source: www.msnbc.com

• Whatever success I have achieved, whatever positions of leadership I have held have depended less on Ivy League degrees or SAT scores or GPAs and have instead been due to that sense of connection and empathy, the special obligation I felt as a black man like you to help those who need it most, people who didn't have the opportunities that I had because there, but for the grace of God go I. I might have been in their shoes. I might have been in prison. I might have been unemployed. I might not have been able to support a family. And that motivates me.

  Barack Obama

  Opportunity, Men, Gpa

  "Around The World" with Michael Holmes and Suzanne Malveaux, www.cnn.com. May 20, 2013.

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