Empathy Quotes - Page 18

• We admire elephants in part because they demonstrate what we consider the finest human traits: empathy, self-awareness, and social intelligence. But the way we treat them puts on display the very worst of human behavior.

  Graydon Carter

  Elephants, Self, Way

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• When you write, you take the ball and you hold it up to the light and you turn it slowly, and let people draw their own conclusions. And try to bring empathy to all sides of the equation.

  Justin Cronin

  Writing, Light, People

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• I like reading novels because it provides insight into human behavior. I am really interested in feelings and think they are what define us as a species. When you really get it right in acting, it's an act of empathy. You feel less distant from others, and that is really exciting.

  Claire Danes

  Reading, Thinking, Feelings

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• I feel like songwriting is an experiment in empathy.

  Zooey Deschanel

  Songwriting, Feels, Experiments

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• Movies that encourage empathy are more effective than those that objectify problems.

  Roger Ebert

  Problem

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• Change begins with understanding and understanding begins by identifying oneself with another person: in a word, empathy. The arts enable us to put ourselves in the minds, eyes, ears and hearts of other human beings.

  Richard Eyre

  Art, Eye, Understanding

  "Richard Eyre: Arts cuts will result in cultural apartheid" by Richard Eyre, www.theguardian.com. February 15, 2011.

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• Look, I'm a cancer survivor, all right? So I have great personal empathy for people who have pre-existing conditions and can't get insurance.

  Carly Fiorina

  Cancer, People, Survivor

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• I believe that stories are incredibly important, possibly in ways we don't understand, in allowing us to make sense of our lives, in allowing us to escape our lives, in giving us empathy and in creating the world that we live in.

  Neil Gaiman

  Believe, Creating, Giving

  "Neil Gaiman: 'I don't think I'm mainstream. I'm lots of different cults'". Interview with Alison Flood, www.theguardian.com. July 26, 2013.

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• The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

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• Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Peace, Kindness, Sacrifice

  Mahatma Gandhi (1965). “Glorious Thoughts of Gandhi: Being a Treasury of about Ten Thousand Valuable and Inspiring Thougths of Mahatma Gandhi, Classified Under Four Hundred Subjects”

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• The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead.

  William Lloyd Garrison

  People, Apathy, Pedestal

  William Lloyd Garrison (1852). “Selections from the writings and speeches of William Lloyd Garrison: With an appendix ...”, p.63

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• A prerequisite to empathy is simply paying attention to the person in pain.

  Daniel Goleman

  Pain, Attention, Persons

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• In a high-IQ job pool, soft skills like discipline, drive and empathy mark those who emerge as outstanding.

  Daniel Goleman

  Jobs, Skills, Discipline

  "They’ve Taken Emotional Intelligence Too Far" by Daniel Goleman, ideas.time.com. November 01, 2011.

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• Any disease support community is a place of deep bonds and empathy, and there are thousands if not tens of thousands of them.

  Howard Rheingold

  Support, Community, Disease

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• None of us can choose where we shall love.

  Susan Kay

  Sympathy

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• If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, Tyrants, People

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.82, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Empathy during agony is a portion of divinity.

  Neal A. Maxwell

  Agony, Divinity, Portions

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• Animals are more than ever a test of our character, of mankind's capacity for empathy and for decent, honorable conduct and faithful stewardship. We are called to treat them with kindness, not because they have rights or power or some claim to equality, but in a sense because they don't; because they all stand unequal and powerless before us.

  Matthew Scully

  Kindness, Character, Animal

  Matthew Scully (2011). “Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy”, p.14, Souvenir Press

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• I learn from my own daughter that you don’t have to be awake to cry.

  Jodi Picoult

  Daughter, Cry, Awake

  Jodi Picoult (2009). “My Sister's Keeper: A Novel”, p.41, Simon and Schuster

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• As we tell stories about the lives of others, we learn how to imagine what another creature might feel in response to various events. At the same time, we identify with the other creature and learn something about ourselves.

  Martha C. Nussbaum

  Events, Stories, Might

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• A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you." The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?" The old man replied simply, "The one you feed.

  Wendy Mass

  Kindness, Regret, Lying

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• Animal lovers are a special breed of humans, generous of spirit, full of empathy, perhaps a little prone to sentimentality, and with hearts as big as a cloudless sky

  John Grogan

  Dog, Heart, Animal

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• A novel is not an allegory.... It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing.

  Azar Nafisi

  Heart, Character, Destiny

  Azar Nafisi (2003). “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, p.111, Random House

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• I hear much of people's calling out to punish the guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the innocent.

  Daniel Defoe

  Inspirational, People, Apathy

  Daniel Defoe, James T. Boulton (1975). “Selected Writings of Daniel Defoe”, p.166, CUP Archive

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• When I confront a human being as my Thou and speak the basic word I-Thou to him, then he is no thing among things nor does he consist of things. He is no longer He or She, a dot in the world grid of space and time, nor a condition to be experienced and described, a loose bundle of named qualities. Neighborless and seamless, he is Thou and fills the firmament. Not as if there were nothing but he; but everything else lives in his light.

  Martin Buber

  Light, Space, Quality

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