Quotes

“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change”- Thich Nhat Hanh

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” - Mother Teresa

“No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” - Theodore Roosevelt

“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” - Albert Einstein

“When a good man is hurt all who would be called good must suffer with him.” - Euripides

But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit – the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes; to see the world through those who are different from us – the child who’s hungry, the laid-off steelworker, the immigrant woman cleaning your dorm room. […] Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. And because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential – and become full-grown.” - Barack Obama

“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from his angle as well as your own.” - Henry Ford

“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know when it will be too late.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.” ― Dalai Lama

“Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.” - Mohsin Hamid

“First of all,” he said, “if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” - Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.” - John Steinbeck

“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy; we can all sense a mysterious connection to each other.” - Meryl Streep

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” ― Dalai Lama

“When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens to you.” - Susan Sarandon

“Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping him up.” - Jesse Jackson

“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

“Empathy is the greatest virtue. From it, all virtues flow. Without it, all virtues are an act.” - Eric Zorn

“Empathy is when you care about how someone feels and you try to understand them, to put yourself in their shoes and in their heart and in their soul.” - A fourth grade student from Los Angeles

“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.” - Albert Schweitzer

“Have you ever been surfing? Imagine you’re on your surfboard now, waiting for the big one to come. Get ready to get carried with that energy. Now, here it comes. Are you with that energy right now? Thats empathy. No words – just been with that energy. When I connect with what’s alive in another person, I have feelings similar to when I’m surfing.” - Marshall Rosenberg

“The opposite of anger is not calmness.  It’s empathy.” - Mehmet Oz

“If we share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” - Brene Brown

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to take a look through each other’s eye for an instant?” - Henry David Thoreau

“How can a heart understand the pain of another heart and still do nothing?” - Harshada Pathare

“If speaking is silver, then listening is gold.” - Turkish proverb

“We need to have empathy. When we lose empathy, we lose our humanity.” - Goldie Hawn

“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

“It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.” - Unknown

“Leadership is about empathy.” - Oprah Winfrey

“One friend, one person who is truly understanding, who takes the trouble to listen to us as we consider a problem, can change our whole outlook on the world.” – E. H. Mayoli

“I think we all have empathy.  We may not have enough courage to display it.” - Maya Angelou

“Empathy may be the single most important quality that must be nurtured to give peace a fighting chance.” - Arundhati Ray

“Empathy is the medicine the world needs.” - Judith Orloff

“When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.” - Stephen Covey

“Use your voice for kindness, your ears for compassion, your hands for charity, your mind for truth, and your heart for love.” - Anonymous

“Empathy is like giving someone a psychological hug.” - Lawrence J.

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” - Epictetus

“Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow for other’s good, and melt at other’s woe.” - Homer

“If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.” - Dolly Parton

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. without them humanity cannot survive.” - Dalai lama

“Empathy is walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.  Sympathy is being sorry their feet hurt.” - Rebecca O’Donnell

“There’s only one way to get through some things: together.” - Anonymous

“I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.” - Roger Ebert

“Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness.  It’s the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else’s pain is as meaningful as your own.” - Barbara Kingsolver

“Nothing is more important than empathy for another human being’s suffering. Nothing. Not a career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we’re going to survive with dignity.” - Audrey Hepburn

“Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it's beauty.” - Albert Einstein

“There are two sides to every issue.” - Ayn Rand

“Empathy grows as we learn.” - Alice Miller

“Don’t cast shadows on anyone unless you are providing shade.” - Terri Guillemets

“There is no greater loan than a sympathetic ear.” - Frank Tyger

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” - Simone Weil

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” - Mother Teresa

“Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.” - Alfred Adler

“At our best, we practice empathy, imagining ourselves in the lives and circumstances of others. This is the bridge across our nation's deepest divisions.” - George W. Bush