Top 265 Empathy Quotes

Learning a foreign language, and the culture that goes with it, is one of the most useful things we can do to broaden the empathy and imaginative sympathy and cultural outlook of children.

Books by women, people of color, LGBTQ authors, differently abled people, and non-Americans are a great way of broadening horizons and building empathy.

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.

Weight is an intensely personal, sensitive and often tricky issue for women and it is something women talk about a lot among themselves, usually with empathy and support.

In order to be a good emergency contact, you need a lot of friend-patience and empathy. Often, this comes from personal experience with anxiety, trauma, and depression.

My theory is that the female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy, and that the male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems.

While we have to take personal responsibility for our actions, I have a great deal of empathy for people who are unconsciously racially biased, and indeed count myself among their number.

I have a lot of empathy for quarterbacks.

Because I was a dancer when I was a kid, I have so much empathy for these young girls who are so drawn to something lovely in music and in movement, and yet they encounter a world full of judgment and criticism of 11-year-old artists and bodies.

‘Me Too’ is about letting – using the power of empathy to stomp out shame.

You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you’re a writer.

As authors, most – most authors, our art is portraying the human condition. Trying to show you what it’s like to be somebody else, trying to make you feel for somebody else. That means you have to have a high degree of empathy.

If you can use songs as a tool, vehicle for empathy and a deeper understanding of how people are feeling and how people’s emotions work, there’s a lot of good that can come from that.

When we watch stories, we learn empathy, we learn compassion, and hopefully we achieve some sort of understanding.

I am a big one for subtlety and empathy. My dad was softly spoken and didn’t carry his honours and accomplishments for everyone to see.

In my work as an actor, I have been given even greater insights and have been guided towards empathy and a consciousness of those who are less fortunate.

I do have a bit of empathy I suppose, but it has come more recently as I’m knocking on 30’s door and I think I’m getting there.

I think I identify as a comedian before kind of anything else. Before I identify as a person, as a human being with empathy.

It’s hard to penetrate characters who are very cut off and lack empathy and to do it with sympathy. It’s so easy to make a damaged character repugnant.

This precious thing of empathy and love and understanding is something we have to hold and appreciate and protect.

Positive social emotions like compassion and empathy are generally good for us, and we want to encourage them. But do we know how to most reliably raise children to care about the suffering of other people? I’m not sure we do.

There are justifiable case-by-case situations wherein an educator might exhibit targeted sensitivity to a student’s unique circumstances. This is humane and laudable. In most instances though, trigger warnings are not a manifestation of justified empathy but are symptomatic of an ailing culture.

The idea of faking empathy to take a step forward to understanding – it’s a really powerful idea.

Despair is despair, sorrow is sorrow, death is death. It’s not about who is experiencing it; it’s about building a bridge of empathy across these experiences.

Machines are becoming devastatingly capable of things like killing. Those machines have no place for empathy. There’s billions of dollars being spent on that. Character robotics could plant the seed for robots that actually have empathy.

Empathy, humanity and support for each other is more important than revenue, than growth.

Insects are living metaphors for me. They are so alien and so remote and so perfect, but also they are emotionless; they don’t have any human or mammalian instincts. They’ll eat their young at the drop of a hat; they can eat your house! There’s no empathy – none.

I don’t think there’s any reason in journalism not to approach stories we cover with humility, empathy, compassion, and intellectual openness. I mean, I think those are just important human traits. I don’t think that precludes scrutiny, negativity, where it’s appropriate.

My grandmother was an unparalleled storyteller who gave me a preview of how life might turn out, and also fortified my empathy.

The mobile revolution has dramatically changed our world view, empowered women, and increased our empathy. Corrupt governments have been toppled and wars avoided because our species has become so digitally connected.

American popular culture has long been marked by an absence of empathy for American Indians. Westerns doubled as a campaign against so-called savages in a way that desensitized us to the savages we’d become.

Disability is articulated as a struggle, an unnecessary burden that one must overcome to the soundtrack of a string crescendo. But disabled lives are multi-faceted – brimming with personality, pride, ambition, love, empathy, and wit.

I have empathy; I am humane. I understand human misery.

When we used to go to the car-wash where people would wipe the windows, my dad would go out and help them and then tip them as well, so I learned my empathy from my dad, and my mum is very empathetic too, but in a very stern way; she will always check my ego.

Trump’s lying, his self-regard, his self-soothing, his lack of empathy, his narcissistic rage, his contempt for norms, rules, laws, facts and simple truths – have all come home to roost.

There should be characters and situations that we cannot identify with, that retain either too much horror or too much wonder to allow for simple identification. That feels to me like an accurate depiction of what it is like to be in the world, rather than a neutered register of continual empathy.

We often want the world to think we are strong and everything is perfect, when the reality is sometimes we are hurting and need a shoulder to cry on or just compassion or empathy.

The only way to combat hate is by demonstrating empathy and love.

Empathy is one of our greatest tools of business that is most underused.

If evil is empathy erosion, and empathy erosion is a form of illness, then evil turns out to be nothing more than a particularly awful psychological disorder.

Democracy is based upon empathy and the recognition that some decisions are solely for the community’s benefit without regard to one’s own narrow self-interest.

I have a lot of empathy, and I think that’s where mothering starts. You are there to empathise and facilitate.

Acting is probably the only profession where you are relying only on empathy.

Almost all human beings have the capacity for empathy. Everyone has the potential to be at least troubled, or feel genuine anguish, about the suffering of other human beings.

What we call politics now and what most political writers write about is the empathy and the bonding and the word choice and the horse rights, and it has nothing to do with what’s really happening to people’s lives.

One important lesson I learned over and over is that, when you walk into any troubled organization, there is a delicate balance between expressing human empathy and yet not passively sweeping hard truths under the rug.

I look for a role that hopefully I feel empathy with and that I can understand and love, but also that has that challenge for me to play – a different kind of role, a different type of character, a different time period.

The opposite of anger is not calmness, its empathy.

We need to see kindness and we need to see empathy and compassion. That’s something we need to see in leadership as well.

I think I lead with empathy and connection to our people. I find that the most effective leadership style for me is to just talk and listen. It sounds simple, but it’s so effective.

One result of moviemaking – and a side effect of moviegoing – is familiarity. If an actor is particularly good, familiarity opens into something deeper: care, concern, identification, empathy. Yet even those concepts can feel inadequate for some actors.

The thing that enchants me the most is the ability women have to feel other people’s pain. The total empathy that women have is extraordinary.

If you aren’t humble, whatever empathy you claim is false and probably results from some arrogance or the desire to control. But true empathy is rooted in humility and the understanding that there are many people with as much to contribute in life as you.

I have absolutely no empathy for camels. I didn’t care for being abused in the Middle East by those horrible, horrible, horrible creatures. They don’t like people. It’s not at all like the relationship between horses and humans.

Clevelanders care about underdogs, partly because we are, partly because we have empathy, and we’re – we have faith in our God and faith in humanity, and that makes us support the underdog.

I am more interested in teaching my children empathy than subscribing to our ‘me’ culture and obsessing about ‘how do I feel’ all the time.

I don’t mean to criticize anyone in any way that I wouldn’t criticize myself. I think people should have fun, and have a good time, and enjoy the luck that we have to be lazy and dwell in consumerism. But I think that it’s a balance. And our job as actors is empathy.

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

What we need in medical schools is not to teach empathy, as much as to preserve it – the process of learning huge volumes of information about disease, of learning a specialized language, can ironically make one lose sight of the patient one came to serve; empathy can be replaced by cynicism.

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

Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It’s the impetus for creating change.

Sympathy relies on a common experience. If you’re clumsy, you might have sympathy for others who tend to bump into things. Empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to understand another person’s feelings even if you’ve never experienced them yourself.

At a person-to-person level, I think that there’s always something to be said for having some empathy for the folks who really, really disagree with you about a given topic.

When you hear about what someone else is going through, and you are unable to distance yourself from it or in any way muzzle your empathy and are inspired to actually do something, these are moments to learn from.

I’m an activist and advocate. I have empathy. It is hard to ignore causes.

You really need to have a lot of empathy for the work you’re doing and the people who you’re ultimately trying to help, whether that’s a business colleague, a boss, or, ultimately, the user of the software you’re building.

Unfortunately, people not just in India but globally seem to be lacking empathy. Not just during the pandemic, but in other times too.

I think that’s an incredible thing that we can do as actors – to feel empathy toward someone that you may otherwise detest, you know?

Ultimately, knowing God and reading the Word, it helps with patience with people, understanding, empathy and sympathy that they might not have that I have. If God gave it to me, why not exercise it?

We need to understand the other side to impact the other side. We become much more effective as humans and leaders when we engage in hearty conversations with those who are different from us, not necessarily to change our opinions, but to build the empathy muscle.

Empathy is the most mysterious transaction that the human soul can have, and it’s accessible to all of us, but we have to give ourselves the opportunity to identify, to plunge ourselves in a story where we see the world from the bottom up or through another’s eyes or heart.

When you are the head of any philanthropy organization, what you learn is empathy, how to listen and be responsive to people’s needs.

Every day, at home, I have the astonishing and humbling opportunity – together with my wife Sophie – to nurture empathy, compassion, self-love, and a keen sense of justice in our three kids.

I don’t know if it is a spiritual, physiological or psychological phenomenon, but I believe now more than ever that singing is a universal, built-in mechanism designed to cultivate empathy and compassion.

The grieving are surely owed our empathy, but capital punishment can neither right a wrong nor prevent another from happening.

Because I teach and write about depression and bipolar illness, I am often asked what is the most important factor in treating bipolar disorder. My answer is competence. Empathy is important, but competence is essential.

Empathy is choosing to see ourselves in another despite our differences. It’s recognizing that the same humanity – the same desire for meaning, fulfillment and security – exists in each of us, even if it’s expressed uniquely.

My husband and I grew up with parents who supported our passion, and we’re grateful to them for that. It really helps you find your identity when you’re younger. It helps you become a really well-rounded person, the more you can show from different perspectives. The arts show us empathy, which is so important.

The struggle of my life created empathy – I could relate to pain, being abandoned, having people not love me.

My journey has mainly been driven by empathy towards people who I thought were suffering.

The truth is that we should live with less envy and more cordiality and empathy.

I do not shy away from accepting that I had a troubled past, but in the journey of coming out of that dark phase, I understand humans better. I am less judgmental and more compassionate. I learned empathy and forgiveness, and that gives me confidence as a person.

Fiction and essays can create empathy for the theoretical stranger.

I love the theatre and Miller is one of my all-time favourite playwrights. ‘All My Sons’ is a very socialist play, which exposes the lack of empathy that can accompany capitalism when it is left unchecked.

A judge is supposed to have empathy for no one but simply to follow the law.

Dwyane is just sensational. Look, he has all the qualities of a champion, of a winner, of a Hall of Fame player and talent, but his humanity, empathy and his ability to articulate his feelings separates him from everybody else.

A more courageous empathy is needed in our country to see the struggles of people from factory towns to farm towns to city towns who can’t even afford the rent in their cities anymore because costs are going so high.

A novel can enlarge the empathy and imagination of both its author and its reader, and my experience, that sense of enlargement is most intense when I’m transported beyond the narrow limits of my daily life.

Cancer is a growth hormone for empathy, and empathy makes us useful to each other in ways we were not, could not have been, before.

As long as our people, youth, businesses and individuals engage the issues of the day civilly in our democracy, and treat their fellow Singaporeans and foreigners within our midst with dignity and empathy, and endeavor for a more caring society, the best years of Singapore, a Singapore for all, are ahead of us.

When I did the original research for ‘Odd Girl Out,’ I asked every bullied girl I interviewed to tell me what she needed most from her family. The answer truly surprised me. It wasn’t having the best solutions, calling the school, or trying to act like everything was okay. It was empathy.

Here’s what I think is good about ‘Ted Lasso’ and what I’m proud of in it, as a writer: It’s about kindness and teamwork and empathy, and being curious and not judgmental, but it does all of that through storytelling and plot.

Empathy is much bigger than sympathy. When the character is empathised with, that means you have succeeded as an actor. So even if it’s a villain, the audiences don’t hate you… they understand why you have turned into a villain.

In a crazy, high-pressure environment like a film set, eventually a peculiar kind of empathy develops for your co-workers.

Travel is the only way to get empathy for other people’s mindsets – to know their struggles and what they’re drawn to.

I want to see more families have more compassion, more empathy in understanding that not every family is sitting there intentionally saying, ‘I don’t care about everybody else.’ They’re just trying to do the best that they can.

We need to teach our children empathy and care and love and communication and social responsibility in preparation for adulthood.

People with lower incomes tend to give a greater percentage of their incomes to help others and show greater empathy and compassion – perhaps because they know they might face the same circumstances.

Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering.

Empathy probably started out as a mechanism to improve maternal care. Mammalian mothers who were attentive to their young’s needs were more likely to rear successful offspring.

For me, being a top coach means more than just teaching football. That includes empathy, it means that you can speak to a group, that you can deal with the media – you have to be able to do all of that. I would not describe myself as blind in this regard, but a top coach also includes titles.

In order to have understanding, you need forgiveness, compassion, and empathy.

Cinema is my religion. It is a way to make people sensitive, through emotions. To make them feel, experience empathy. People are touched and act ethically when they are emotionally touched.

I’m a believer in forgiveness. I have worked with people who have been in gangs and now dedicate their lives to helping inner city kids. I’ve run offender services with teachings of responsibility, empathy and understanding of the victims at their heart. I’ve seen people change.

I love my ability to generate empathy and compassion within myself and others.

I have a great deal of empathy for anyone who’s having a hard time. I believe this ability to see another’s viewpoint has served me well as a writer.

A love of reading shows empathy, the desire to understand how others live or act or might act – and why.

If writing really is empathy, then understanding your place in society might actually help you achieve it.

I think the most important quality for a writer to have is empathy.

The phrase ‘misuse of privilege’ is becoming a free pass to tear apart pretty much anybody we choose to. It’s becoming a devalued term, and it’s making us lose our capacity for empathy and for distinguishing between serious and unserious transgressions.

Empathy should not be contingent on our proximity to suffering or the likelihood of it happening to us. Rather, it should stem from a disdain that suffering is happening at all.

I know some women’s rights activists have seen so much abuse that they can’t stand men, but I have a sense of empathy with the men. Without excusing the abuse they are capable of, many of them are trapped within these communities and bound by expectations they didn’t necessarily ask for.

Documentaries require an enormous amount of grit and empathy – and that is something women are incredibly strong at.

I’ve learned not to be such a show-off and to have a bit more empathy with humanity. Or at least to fake that.

There are two elements to nailing a job interview: form and substance. ‘Form’ describes the outer layer of your character – your manners, your demeanor, your social skills. ‘Substance’ describes the inner core of your character – your intellect, your empathy, your creativity.

My own feeling is we need more compassion, we need more empathy, we need more togetherness, in terms of working together.

If I had to name my superpower, it’s probably empathy.

Whether it’s a song or a television show, or a book or poem, art is the thing that cracks me open and encourages me to go on a deeper journey to find my own compassion and empathy and humanity.

Writing is weaponized empathy. It’s putting yourself in someone else’s head. It’s finding what’s in them that relates to you.

Empathy isn’t the same thing as expressing emotions. It’s not about sharing your feelings – it can be really uncomfortable if a parent cries or loses strength at the moment her daughter needs it most. The message sent is that you need to be taken care of, not the other way around.

At 10, I heard Neil Diamond’s ‘Solitary Man’ and it moved me so deeply I stood, frozen in place during school recess, feeling such empathy for the narrator in Diamond’s masterpiece that my heart was smashed.

The more extreme the story, the more successful it becomes. Emotions on high, empathy engaged, we become primed to help.

Poets have to be sensitive to their audience, but it does not mean that they censor themselves. I realise my audience is diverse. Some will read with empathy and curiosity while others will take offense.

It’s got to do with putting yourself in other people’s shoes and seeing how far you can come to truly understand them. I like the empathy that comes from acting.

No human heart is denied empathy. No religion can demolish that by indoctrination. No culture, no nation and nationalism – nothing can touch it because it is empathy.

Empathy begins with understanding life from another person’s perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It’s all through our own individual prisms.

I have always worked from that place, that if you are going to inhabit someone and get under their eyes, you need to have empathy.

Somehow we got used to death, and then we dehumanised it. We account for conflicts in figures. Ebola is 13,500 infected, 5,000 people have died… People are losing their sense of empathy, their sense of wanting to do something.

The story is a machine for empathy. In contrast to logic or reason, a story is about emotion that gets staged over a sequence of dramatic moments, so you empathize with the characters without really thinking about it too much. It is a really powerful tool for imagining yourself in other people’s situations.

There is also a natural and very, very strong empathy with the underdog, with people who have suffered, people who have been pushed around by foreigners in particular, but also by their own people.

It’s dangerous to think of yourself as a hero and someone else as a villain. It gets in the way of empathy.

My own feeling is we need more compassion, we need more empathy, we need more togetherness, in terms of working together.

Human nature is complex. Even if we do have inclinations toward violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to cooperation, to self-control.

People of power have to show empathy and kindness to the young.

There’s a power in empathy.

Like many people, most Libertarians feel empathy and sympathy for less fortunate people. But they know you can’t have perfection in a world of limited resources.

I always like it when writers posit writing as an act of empathy. It’s such a grand turn of phrase, such a noble ideal; empathy is so worth aiming for in life that the same must hold true in art. But personally, I can’t think too deeply about that when I’m working, or I’d never get anything down on the page.

Empathy is about two people – two people meeting, getting to know each other and tuning in to what the other person is thinking and feeling.

Michigan has always been a swing state, so we understand that the goal is to have two political parties, debating the issues with empathy and respect.

I think empathy is a beautiful thing. I think that’s the power of film though. We have one of the most powerful, one of the greatest communicative tools known to man.

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.

Empathy is a necessary step for truth and reconciliation.

‘Me too’ became a term that was both succinct and powerful, and it was a way to ring up immediate empathy between survivors.

I was in the Army in the 1960s. I didn’t go to Vietnam. I went to Germany, where I drank beer. But I did have an empathy with the soldiers in Vietnam.

Empathy is why entertainment is always growing, and for millennials, everyone is judging them and trying to grab their attention by insulting them. We’re living in a time where everyone has 25 profiles, and they’re having 25 conversations.

I got a lot of empathy from my mother growing up, and I think it prevented me from ever really just writing people off.

Too often, wealthy people born on third base blithely criticize the poor for failing to hit home runs. The advantaged sometimes perceive empathy as a sign of muddle-headed weakness rather than as a marker of civilization.

There were some advantages to being a woman photographer. I think women have more empathy with the subject.

Human morality is unthinkable without empathy.

My dad is an economist who does global development research. What he practices is a kind of quantifiable empathy: trying to empathize with systems rather than people.

As you get older you have more respect and empathy for your parents. Now I have a great relationship with both of them.

I learned a lot of empathy and openness from my parents. I know so many people who don’t have that experience.

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.

I need my ‘art work’ or ‘entertainment work’ or whatever to have empathy for or connection to the way I experience the world as a person.

Empathy is important, openness, honesty, and an understanding for others.

Filmmaking is a language where you empathise with human situations. Unless you have empathy for characters, you shouldn’t be a filmmaker.

I cry a lot when I feel empathy. I can feel heartbroken by life, and I cry quite easily, sometimes for no reason. It’s healthy, I think.

Watching the news, there seems to be an empathy failure and miscommunication.

Virtual reality is the ‘ultimate empathy machine.’ These experiences are more than documentaries. They’re opportunities to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.

I think it’s so important that, if I’m writing about the real world, I stay true to it. I think that kids do compartmentalize, and they’re hopefully able to see it from a safe place of their own lives and, through that, learn something about empathy.

I think there’s such a fine line in a relationship. The role of imagination and privacy… how much space can you allow before that becomes distance? And similarly, imagination is empathy. That’s how you achieve empathy. It’s how you can be with another person and understand how they are in the world.

I think entrepreneurs really appreciate directness and honesty, coupled with empathy.

I think empathy is romantic. I think humor is romantic. Kindness is romantic. I think those kind of gestures of caring and love are romantic.

The arts bridge cultures; they’re good for the economy, and they’re good for fostering empathy and decency.

I think as you get older, there are things that there’s just no light side to, but you know, I guess the more you empathise with people, the more empathy you have, the less you are able to see the lighter side.

You can be aware and educated and informed, but you’ve got to place emphasis on being compassionate, having empathy and understanding.

Becoming a reader grows our horizons, our appetite for the good, the true and the beautiful, and our empathy.

When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.

What makes us different from other species is our capacity for compassion and empathy with the struggles of other people.

Empathy and social skills are social intelligence, the interpersonal part of emotional intelligence. That’s why they look alike.

The literary world is filled with good and generous people. But then that’s what writing is all about – empathy.

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.

You can’t write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental, mind-shaping, driving force for pre-modern societies. I’m very interested in what religion does to us – its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

When you see yourself as the center of things, it deprives you of a certain level of empathy.

I felt great empathy for the thousands of Americans who lost their home because of a system that failed them.

Music, like film, is an incredible tool for creating empathy.

My wife has been my greatest earthly inspiration. She excels in eloquence, the poetry of words, empathy and graciousness.

I’m cursed with empathy. I’m also by nature way too opinionated.

Once you’re playing someone, you shouldn’t be judging them in any way. That’s what being an actor is – it’s having empathy for people that are different from yourself. Once you’ve committed to that person, your responsibility is to tell that story.

If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.

I have such a crush on Tony Robbins and his passion, empathy, and sheer talent.

We have become a society that lacks empathy. Are we teaching empathy? The Internet desensitises, too.

I believe that if you can discover something of the truth of a person, then you will start to understand, and to understand is to move towards, if not like, then at least an empathy of some kind.

There’s a gap somehow between empathy and activism. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of ‘soul force’ – something that emanates from a deep truth inside of us and empowers us to act. Once you identify your inner genius, you will be able to take action, whether it’s writing a check or digging a well.

We shall listen, not lecture; learn, not threaten. We will enhance our safety by earning the respect of others and showing respect for them. In short, our foreign policy will rest on the traditional American values of restraint and empathy, not on military might.

We’ve had Obama for eight years, who, to me, is a model of integrity, sensitivity, empathy. He’s wise, he’s patient, he maintains his composure, and I would have voted for him again.

If I see someone break down in tears, I don’t necessarily feel empathy for them in those moments unless it’s really warranted. I feel like a tear needs to be warranted in a movie; it needs to be earned.

I think the very idea of character, of developing not just grit, but empathy and curiosity, emotional intelligence – you know, the things that I want my own daughters to develop – the idea that we’re going to get there through rewards and punishments seems completely at odds with the idea of character itself.

For me, empathy is an existential question – it’s about the survival of the human race. That is, it’s imperative for us to overcome the challenges we face.

Once kids begin to realize that they are connected to a greater good and greater whole, then that will lessen the possibility that they will act out violently because it creates empathy.

If you have empathy for both sides, then that’s the same as having no empathy at all.

Our human face happens to be one of the most powerful channels that we all use to communicate social and emotional states: everything from enjoyment, surprise, empathy, and curiosity.

What separates humans from other animals is our empathy. With the possible exception of bonobos, we are the most empathetic animal on the planet.

Sometimes, in Silicon Valley, there is this attitude that we know best and we can change the world. The boldness allows us to invent the future. But, we need more empathy for those who are left behind and a recognition that Silicon Valley can’t just call the shots and expect change.

What’s important now are the characteristics of the brain’s right hemisphere: artistry, empathy, inventiveness, big-picture thinking. These skills have become first among equals in a whole range of business fields.

If the only people we are able to extend empathy to are those who are like us, who come from the same country we do, or who share our faith, then we misunderstand what empathy is.

Traits like humility, courage, and empathy are easily overlooked – but it’s immensely important to find them in your closest relationships.

All advocacy is, at its core, an exercise in empathy.

I don’t know whether your heart ever necessarily changes, but time changes the way that you perceive the world. And you just hope it gives you more empathy and all those other things.

The study of history requires investigation, imagination, empathy, and respect. Reverence just doesn’t enter into it.

I’ve been fascinated by the idea that evil is the absence of empathy.

Humankind seems to have an enormous capacity for savagery, for brutality, for lack of empathy, for lack of compassion.

There is a minimum requirement of morality, of moral compass, of decency, of moral empathy. And if you are incapable of meeting that minimum requirement, you can’t even talk to me about policy.

I really like feeling connected to people and feeling like I have a good, solid sense of empathy.

‘I’ is the word everyone uses to refer to themselves. On the one hand, it points to a specific person, but it’s also this blank space that you can insert yourself into; it’s a chute into empathy.

Reading faces is a crucial part of children’s socialization and helps them learn empathy.

I really connect with every character that I’ve played, just because I kinda have to; as an actor, you want to take them in and get to know them and like them; because they’re evil, you kinda have to like them so that you can understand them and play them and play them with some kind of empathy.

I know it might sound weird, but empathy is one of the greatest creators of energy. It’s counterintuitive because it’s selfless.

It may be true in the case of autism that if you start off with a deficit in terms of empathy or mind reading, you’ve just got more time to devote to understanding the world by systemizing.

That balance between involvement and detachment is what novelists do. It’s the ideal relationship between a novelist and a character, I think, total involvement and identity and empathy, stopping short of being autobiographical – in my case, anyway – but also quite detached.

Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.

I’m a fan of Oliver Stone. I like his movies, I like his excess, and I think he has a great capacity for empathy and it comes out more powerfully in this movie than in any of his other films, even the formal ‘I’m identifying with the underdog’ movies like ‘Born on the Fourth of July.’

What I am unable to understand with the people who associate themselves with Trump is their willingness to overlook the dishonesty, the indecency, the lack of empathy, to be asked to go out every single day and why.

Women are just so much tougher and more patient than men are – their capacity for empathy blows me away. And their capacity to deal with stress for long periods of time is also kind of awe inspiring.

Our message, without preaching, is how to treat wildlife and to have empathy for all animals.

I think any time anybody sees the bad guy show emotion and you’re not hitting the audience over the head, there’s always a tinge of empathy for that individual.

As a mentor, you have to be willing to put yourself in your mentee’s shoes to understand their struggles that they deal with. It’s not supposed to turn into a pity party by any means, but empathy speaks volumes to a mentee in need of help rather than forced sympathy.

We must broaden the definition of who our neighbors are, and extend the boundaries of our interest and empathy.

One of the ultimate challenges for biology is to understand the brain’s processing of unconscious and conscious perception, emotion, and empathy.

I am aware of the sufferings of women in India, which is also the suffering of women in many, many countries on our planet. My heart is filled with empathy and love for them.

It’s not a very nice thing to not have empathy. I would like to have empathy. In the past I haven’t been very empathetic with other people.

I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.

When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That’s one of the great feelings – to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

To me, race is not all about grievance. It is also about pride and empathy and humanity and understanding the value of difference. But along with that, there are also expectations that we should set for ourselves and for others. We should expect to be treated as equal citizens.

Writing a book is very personal. It’s a very personal relationship. A book will start with something as simple as two men talking about work. That gets the fire going. Sustaining that fire is the hard work. It takes attention and empathy to hone the characters.

A deep appreciation for politics comes from empathy for our fellow human beings and their diverse paths through life.

I thought Mia Hansen-Love was a true auteur, and I always wanted to work with her. Mia’s empathy for her characters and her ability to use the language of cinema to communicate real human depth is extraordinary. She’s a humanist.

The arts are the most uniquely suited to provide young people with critical-thinking skills, problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration, empathy and tolerance and compassion, looking at the other point of views.

I grew up with lots of animals and I related more to them than I did to people. I feel a lot of empathy for them.

The first word that always came into my head with Henry VI was ’empathy.’ He doesn’t have a barrier between what other people feel and what he feels.

You have to have sympathy for and an empathy with a character in order to play them.

Just to get the basic fundamentals and empathy – I think that’s the most important thing to bring to it if you’ve acted in the past and are now a director: the empathy.

I am actually incredibly contented and jolly. But, and I have no idea why this is, I have a really strong empathy with all kinds of warped and destructive modes of thinking. I don’t know why, but those things co-exist.

Obama often criticizes policies that place the interests of the powerful ahead of the powerless. But through his administration’s support of abortion rights, Obama shows his lack of empathy for society’s most powerless.

Just like Steve did, Bindi’s got that strange communication with wildlife. It’s beautiful to watch, and it instills an empathy with all of us about just how important the animal kingdom is.

Most women prefer circles of sharing to pyramids and hierarchies. They prefer conversation to construction. They will usually choose nurturance and empathy over competition and climbing. They will normally choose connection over simple performance games.

As I grew up, I began to discover a little bit about the situation of black people in America and experienced an immediate empathy with the victims of such senseless discrimination. Because although the Turks were never slaves, they were regarded as enemies within Europe because of their Muslim beliefs.

Lady Justice doesn’t have empathy for anyone. She rules strictly based upon the law, and that’s really the only way that our system can function properly under the Constitution.

I think it’s a stereotype that soldiers don’t talk, because my experience is that they will talk if they are met with empathy and no judgment.

The Torah is the foundational text for Jewish law, but the Haggadah is our book of living memory. We are not merely telling a story here. We are being called to a radical act of empathy. Here we are, embarking on an ancient, perennial attempt to give human lives – our lives – dignity.

Like so many of you, I am deeply distressed both by the hateful violence in Charlottesville and by President Trump’s refusal to clearly denounce it. Nobody with any empathy for the plight of people of color in this country could respond the way he did.

As a child, I lived with being punier than other boys in class. The only consolation was my parents’ empathy – they encouraged constant trips to the local drugstore for chocolate milk shakes to fatten me up. The shakes made me happy, but still, all through grammar school, other kids shoved me around.

You don’t teach morals and ethics and empathy and kindness in the schools. You teach that at home, and children learn by example.

What Mr. Obama wants in a nominee isn’t really ’empathy’ and ‘understanding.’ He wants a liberal, activist Supreme Court justice.

George Saunders is the funniest. He makes me laugh in the way I want to laugh – with so much empathy and deep understanding of people. He illuminates things and people I’ve never thought about – and I’ve dedicated my life to the study of people and their idiosyncrasies. He is light years ahead.

I think to really write songs, you need empathy. You have to put yourself in other people’s shoes.

Because a human being is endowed with empathy, he violates the natural order if he does not reach out to those who need care. Responding to this empathy, one is in harmony with the order of things, with dharma; otherwise, one is not.

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.

I have great empathy for all the contestants that come on ‘Top Chef,’ whether they go home right away or they make it to the finish line. It’s a very vulnerable position they put themselves in and I feel for them.

We need all people, everyone, to think for themselves, to think critically, to think abstractly, to develop their powers of empathy.

All leaders, male or female, innately possess feminine qualities like empathy, candor and vulnerability – the difference lies in which leaders choose to suppress those qualities, and which choose to leverage them as strengths.

Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.

The second you think that all your good fortune is a product of your virtue, you become highly judgmental, lacking empathy, totally without self-awareness, arrogant, stupid – I mean, all the stuff that our ruling class is.

I like good food and I’ve always had a very natural empathy with women.

Stories teach us empathy. They reveal to us ourselves in the skins of others.

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

My life was forever changed by people who took the time and had the patience to learn my story and to share theirs with me. They forsook judgment and came to me with kindness and empathy and the impact of that decision was huge.

Imgur is a data-driven company, and our community is our most important signal. But you can’t perfectly plot humans neatly into a chart. It takes someone with instincts and empathy to truly understand the community and represent them in all of the company decisions.

The person in New York City is showing too little empathy for the Trump voter. The Trump voter is showing too little empathy for the person who’s very worried about the refugee ban. They’re not spending enough time with each other to have a meaningful conversation.

The rage of someone who continues to strive so hard and work so hard but is interrupted every day by society, by racism, by white supremacy, by the patriarchy – how can you not feel empathy?

When I read stories of suffering, I still feel something. It seems inhuman not to. At the same time, I’m more aware than ever of how little my feeling is worth, of how – if we are to truly keep alive the conditions that make ethical life possible – it is not empathy that’s needed but insight, organization, and action.

Anyone who has experienced a certain amount of loss in their life has empathy for those who have experienced loss.

Our culture encourages women to nurture men, making it predictable that many experience a seductive empathy for abusive men, as well as the misguided hope that love can obliterate an ugly past.

Empathy is the bridge to understand those who you may be lucky to one day lead, and it is – in my opinion – the most under-appreciated human skill in business.

It’s kind of funny that I’ve been branded as the empathy lady when, really, what I’m doing is questioning and interrogating empathy.