Top 288 Empathy Quotes

In this post, you will find great Empathy Quotes from famous people, such as Anderson Cooper, Lakhdar Brahimi, Joseph B. Wirthlin, Daniel Lubetzky, Cory Booker. You can learn and implement many lessons from these quotes.

Anyone who has experienced a certain amount of loss in

Anyone who has experienced a certain amount of loss in their life has empathy for those who have experienced loss.
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.
The Lord is well aware of our mortality. He knows our weaknesses. He understands the challenges of our everyday lives. He has great empathy for the temptations of earthly appetites and passions.
The Kind Foundation was created to scale our social impact and be able to deepen our focus on fostering empathy and developing kinder communities.
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.
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.
Alex Flinn
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.
In the midst of a burning-hot shaming, calling for patience and context and understanding and empathy can really land you in trouble.
Women are, in my view, natural peacemakers. As givers and nurturers of life, through their focus on human relationships and their engagement with the demanding work of raising children and protecting family life, they develop a deep sense of empathy that cuts through to underlying human realities.
Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else‘s shoes for a while.
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.
We use a term called ‘empowerment through empathy.’ And ‘Me Too’ is so powerful, because somebody had said it to me – right? – and it changed the trajectory of my healing process once I heard that.
Traits like humility, courage, and empathy are easily overlooked – but it’s immensely important to find them in your closest relationships.
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.
No matter what you do, you’re going to run into haters online. We’re not talking about ordinary, disgruntled customers who should be addressed with empathy and understanding. Haters are a breed apart.
Some public officials are blessed – you can’t acquire this, but you are blessed with the gift of empathy, being able to empathize with those who are suffering.
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?
Trai Byers
We don’t always talk about that as a leadership quality. I think what’s really important is having empathy, understanding the experiences of how someone is going to experience what you have to say.
When you are the head of any philanthropy organization, what you learn is empathy, how to listen and be responsive to people’s needs.
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.
I think entrepreneurs really appreciate directness and honesty, coupled with empathy.
Empathy, humanity and support for each other is more important than revenue, than growth.
Filmmaking is a language where you empathise with human situations. Unless you have empathy for characters, you shouldn’t be a filmmaker.
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.
The literary world is filled with good and generous people. But then that’s what writing is all about – empathy.
The study of history requires investigation, imagination, empathy, and respect. Reverence just doesn’t enter into it.
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.
Fiction and essays can create empathy for the theoretical stranger.
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.
I think that every therapist that I know, including my dad and my sister, have their own issues. But that empathy is what makes them good at their job.
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.
If we accept ourselves as animals, and have empathy and

If we accept ourselves as animals, and have empathy and tolerance, compassion to others, understand that humans are territorial, aggressive and have gender aspects, then we can change things.
True contentment comes with empathy.
Tim Finn
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.
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.
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.
John Gerzema
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.
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.
The grieving are surely owed our empathy, but capital punishment can neither right a wrong nor prevent another from happening.
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.
Unfortunately, people not just in India but globally seem to be lacking empathy. Not just during the pandemic, but in other times too.
A judge is supposed to have empathy for no one but simply to follow the law.
Empathy is not as complicated when you have some aspects in common with your character; it’s not impossible to know someone who’s like you in many ways but different in one. This is true especially if you are a reader. Reading makes you accustomed to inhabiting other lives and sensibilities.
Empathy is important, openness, honesty, and an understanding for others.
I think, at the end of the day, acting and activism are both about empathy. You’re trying to get people to see other people as real and human. And to care.
My wife has been my greatest earthly inspiration. She excels in eloquence, the poetry of words, empathy and graciousness.
George W. Romney
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.
Empathy has the power to bring together people who would otherwise never meet. It has the power to teach us and to reach us in moments of isolation when we think nobody understands.
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.
I hope people learn the power of vulnerability through my songs. I think vulnerability can save the world. Empathy helps people connect with each other.
When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.
I think that I come off as, ‘Nothing bothers me, I don’t care! I’m funny and sassy.’ But I’m deeply sensitive. Not only about myself but to others. Not to pat myself on the back, empathy is a quality I’ve cultivated over my life. It came naturally to me as a child.
The arts bridge cultures; they’re good for the economy, and they’re good for fostering empathy and decency.
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.
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.
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.
Matthieu Ricard
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.
The truth is that we should live with less envy and more cordiality and empathy.
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.
Film is this incredible medium that allows us to feel empathy for people that are very different than us and worlds completely foreign from our own.
I’ve had people hate me for my appearance. I think it gets me a certain level of empathy with the audience. If I was white and handsome and privileged, I probably couldn’t talk about what I talk about because people wouldn’t believe that I have empathy or I could be evenhanded and objective. It’s strange.
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.
Other species help children develop empathy.

Other species help children develop empathy.
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.
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.
I believe the arts are the best way to help people go on a journey of self-discovery toward their own compassion and empathy for humanity and themselves.
Leadership requires the ability to engage and to create empathy for communities with disparate needs and ideas. Telling an effective story – especially in romantic suspensedemands a similar skill set.
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.
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.
Empathy is a virtue, but it should not be a guiding judicial principle.
Most actors will tell you this – I don’t really know how to connect, empathize with, or make worthy of any revelation a character that doesn’t have love in there somewhere, that doesn’t have an idealism or an empathy in there somewhere.
Jeff Perry
I have a profound empathy for people who are in the public eye, whether they manifest it themselves or whether it happened by accident – it doesn’t matter to me. I think there’s a great misunderstanding of what it is to be famous.
My job is to have empathy and curiosity for things that I’ve never done. Also, I’m a person whom people talk to.
‘Me too’ became a term that was both succinct and powerful, and it was a way to ring up immediate empathy between survivors.
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.
A lot of very successful businessmen share some of these sociopathic traits – a lack of empathy, seeing people as commodities, projecting an air of sincerity when everything is actually calculated.
I like good food and I’ve always had a very natural empathy with women.
You can be aware and educated and informed, but you’ve got to place emphasis on being compassionate, having empathy and understanding.
I always had a lot of empathy for the deep outcast weirdos in school. I was kind of like the more sociable weirdo, but I was always talking to the real weird ones.
People who work on the user interface side need to have empathy as a key characteristic. But if you are writing device drivers you don’t really need to understand humans so well.
I always think that if you look at anyone in detail, you will have empathy for them because you recognize them as a human being, no matter what they’ve done.
The idea of faking empathy to take a step forward to understanding – it’s a really powerful idea.
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 remember, once I was stressed, with an upcoming paper deadline. That little Microsoft Word clippy guy would show up in my face, jumping around and asking if I needed help. It had no understanding of my emotions and had zero empathy. That got me interested in this idea of tech being responsive to our emotions.
One of the ultimate challenges for biology is to understand the brain‘s processing of unconscious and conscious perception, emotion, and empathy.
You have to have some connection, empathy, or chemistry with the person you’re playing and playing with.
A little anger is a good thing if it isn’t on your own behalf, if it’s for others deserving of your anger, your empathy.
David Simon
It doesn’t hurt to show some empathy.
Democrats have long held an advantage over Republicans on health care, mostly due to a perceived empathy problem in my party.
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.
Great teaching requires incredible talent and dedication, strong intellectual ability and interpersonal skill, real discipline and empathy.
Empathy goes a long way, for sure. We cannot have healthy, loving, mutually respectful relationships without it. But we’re not psychic. At least I’m not. And intuition can only take you so far, especially when a person’s sense of safety, comfort, and self-worth hangs in the balance.
The struggle of my life created empathy – I could relate to pain, being abandoned, having people not love me.
I love my ability to generate empathy and compassion wi

I love my ability to generate empathy and compassion within myself and others.
My own feeling is we need more compassion, we need more empathy, we need more togetherness, in terms of working together.
Cindy McCain
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.
It’s easy to isolate yourself when you’re buried in work, or to rely only on work friends for empathy. And while your work friends will always ‘get it’ more than your life partner, they don’t know how to comfort you like your partner does.
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.
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.
The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.
The opposite of anger is not calmness, its empathy.
We seek to craft characters who inspire empathy: characters our audience will care for and, as a result, will care about what happens to them and thus will share the journey we have charted. A story, after all, is the character’s journey.
Imaginative empathy is one of the great gifts that humans have, and it means that we can live more than one life. We can picture what it would be like from another perspective.
Dan Chaon
I think empathy is undervalued in a lot of these comedy writersrooms.
Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.
Democracy allows rhetoric, false empathy and emotion to pummel rational thinking – so it’s no wonder so many politicians thrive in it.
Empathy seems to be seen as a weakness. We condition people to withdraw it to succeed. But really, it needs to be re-seen as a strength again if there is to be any kind of hope in the world.
The joy of great fiction is that it transports the reader to another world, where new characters live in otherwise unimaginable ways. It is one of the most powerful ways of generating empathy that I know.
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.
In my view, the best of humanity is in our exercise of empathy and compassion. It’s when we challenge ourselves to walk in the shoes of someone whose pain or plight might seem so different than yours that it’s almost incomprehensible.
I think the most important quality for a writer to have is empathy.
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.
Sen. Akaka’s care, empathy and compassion were evident to everyone who knew him.
We all must support the arts, as it is our culture. It makes us better people. It makes us happy; it gives us empathy and shows us how to live. It is so important.
You can’t have empathy for somebody that’s gone through something you haven‘t – because, definitionally, you can’t. But you can feel for them and have sympathy for them. And that’s what this country needs to practice more. It’s about realizing that you do come from a different place.
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.
Acting is probably the only profession where you are relying only on empathy.
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.
I think art, especially literature, has the particular power to immerse the viewer or reader into another world. This is especially powerful in literature, when a reader lives the experience of the characters. So if the characters are human and real enough, then readers will feel empathy for them.
Good politics starts with empathy, proceeds to analysis, then sets out values and establishes the vision, before getting to the nitty-gritty of policy solutions.
For a time, I really thought acting was just impersonating. But impersonation is just big brush strokes, really. What makes acting different is empathy.
Depression is a surfeit of empathy – a killing empathy – that makes depressives great friends to everyone but themselves. Having a self is a rough business, and depressives can empathize with others who have to deal with it, but not with themselves.
Michael Redhill
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.
Singing with others is an unmediated, shared experience as each person feels the same music reverberating in their individual bodies. Singing is part of our humanity; it is embodied empathy.
That's what happens in a good horror movie: there are a

That’s what happens in a good horror movie: there are always metaphors of greater subjects like humanity and empathy and compassion. It’s not about the action and scary moments: You really care about these characters because they’re mirrors of our own reflections.
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.
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.
You don’t teach morals and ethics and empathy and kindness in the schools. You teach that at home, and children learn by example.
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.
We must broaden the definition of who our neighbors are, and extend the boundaries of our interest and empathy.
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?
As you get older you have more respect and empathy for your parents. Now I have a great relationship with both of them.
My parents were a little more on the hippie spectrum of Christianity – they weren’t liberal Christians by any means, they were pretty conservative – but they preached mostly about love and caring for people, so I grew up with a lot of compassion and empathy.
I don’t believe we would’ve had nearly as diverse a Congress if it weren’t for social media. I don’t think that there would be the same appreciation or empathy for human rights across the world if it weren’t for social media.
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.
Empathy is key in the design process, especially when you start expanding outside of your comfort zone to new languages, cultures, and age groups. If you try to assume what those people want, you’re likely to get it wrong.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It’s very difficult to design something for someone if you have no empathy.
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.
Reading faces is a crucial part of children’s socialization and helps them learn 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.
Music, like film, is an incredible tool for creating empathy.
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.
Scott Mechlowicz
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.
I tend to side with people who are considered the underdog. I have empathy.
I’m less interested in slasher, and go more for roles that can affect you on a personal level. I’m interested in human empathy in the movies I see, and in the ones I am a part of.
Joshua Leonard
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.
For me, documentary photography has always come with great responsibility. Not just to tell the story honestly and with empathy, but also to make sure the right people hear it. When you photograph somebody who is in pain or discomfort, they trust you to make sure the images will act as their advocate.
Giles Duley
George W. Bush: a person who is the ultimate outcome of the American condition. Someone promoted above ability because of circumstance and organisation and empathy. You don’t have to be intelligent. A moron in a hurry could know that you don’t prevent war by having a war.
David Lange
If you operate under the premise that everybody already has some experiences that could be sources of empathy for them, I wonder if there’s some process of coaxing people into tapping into that knowledge.
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 learned a lot of empathy and openness from my parents. I know so many people who don’t have that experience.
If writing really is empathy, then understanding your p

If writing really is empathy, then understanding your place in society might actually help you achieve it.
If I can help create empathy and balance in society, I’m going to do whatever I can to tell stories that subconsciously create that.
I have a lot of empathy for quarterbacks.
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.
Writing is weaponized empathy. It’s putting yourself in someone else’s head. It’s finding what’s in them that relates to you.
We have become a society that lacks empathy. Are we teaching empathy? The Internet desensitises, too.
Any disease support community is a place of deep bonds and empathy, and there are thousands if not tens of thousands of them.
All advocacy is, at its core, an exercise in empathy.
Art, when done well, creates empathy.
Novels attempt to render human experience; that’s really all they are. They are meant to convey empathy for the character.
Literature sucks you into another psyche. So the creation of empathy necessarily influences how you’ll behave to other people.
If you’re going to make a movie about a character who is a supervillain, it’s fantastic to have a core sense of empathy for that character.
My work on what is called ‘deep reading’ explores the range of linguistic, cognitive, and affective processes that underlie not only the emergence of creative thought when we read but also the development and strengthening of capacities like empathy and critical analysis that we can apply to the rest of our lives.
I have to work hard to show people that I’m more than what they see physically; that I’m talented, and that I care and have empathy for people.
The more empathy you have and the more connected you are to society, the better off you’ll be.
Everybody wants a robot that will do psychotherapy. But If you don’t have empathy, you don’t have psychotherapy. The robot doesn’t know about life.
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.
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.
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.
There were some advantages to being a woman photographer. I think women have more empathy with the subject.
I feel empathy wherever and whenever someone feels cornered in life. Whenever someone puts in sweat and blood and does not get the acceptance and appreciation one deserves, I resonate with it.
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.
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.
‘Me Too’ is about lettingusing the power of empathy to stomp out shame.
There is zero correlation between IQ and emotional empathy… They’re controlled by different parts of the brain.
Cinematography speaks to everything that women do inherently well: It’s multitasking, it’s empathy, and it’s channeling visuals into human emotion.
Because I came into fame so early on, I’ve never done that. I don’t investigate through the Internet about people who I know in the same way that I think most people do because I know what that’s like to be on the other end of it. I think it gave me a certain kind of discipline, or empathy.
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’ve always thought of acting as more of an exercise in empathy, which is not to be confused with sympathy. You’re trying to get inside a certain emotional reality or motivational reality and try to figure out what that’s about so you can represent it.
This precious thing of empathy and love and understanding is something we have to hold and appreciate and protect.
I have so much empathy for these young actors that are 19 and all of a sudden they’re beautiful and famous and rich. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’d be dead.’
Empathy is why entertainment is always growing, and for

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.
An exchange of empathy provides an entry point for a lot of people to see what healing feels like.
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.
While leaders spend considerable time and effort trying to envision markets and pushing out innovation, empathy can often generate simple, yet breakthrough ideas.
John Gerzema
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.
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.
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 securityexists in each of us, even if it’s expressed uniquely.
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.
Empathy is a necessary step for truth and reconciliation.
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.
Pat Barker
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.
We have to teach empathy as we do literacy.
Bill Drayton
I don’t know if cinema can change society, but if it can make us show some empathy, that’s a good start.
‘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.
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.
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.
I always feel that life can teach you how to act. I’m always looking at life through other people’s eyes. By feeling empathy. And I do feel that I am constantly learning.
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.
It was so interesting going to high school in New York. You get a callous to the city and an empathy for every type of person.
Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.
For me as an actor, you always sort of want to bring yourself to a character in some way. You want to find a way to approach something in a way that’s real and interesting, and also so there’s some empathy there.
I felt great empathy for the thousands of Americans who lost their home because of a system that failed them.
It’s dangerous to think of yourself as a hero and someone else as a villain. It gets in the way of empathy.
Acting requires a great amount of empathy for real lived human experiences.
I got a lot of empathy from my mother growing up, and I think it prevented me from ever really just writing people off.
I found being a coach in ‘The Ultimate Fighterseries hard because I had to care about others. I don’t feel a lot of empathy with others. Having kids is going to be a scary one for me – I guess I’m going to have to learn.
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.’
As far as my mindset changing, I see myself having more empathy in my older age.
What separates humans from other animals is our empathy. With the possible exception of bonobos, we are the most empathetic animal on the planet.
Cinema connects people: they respond as a group, you feel you are not alone, and you see you are not alone. Capitalism is destroying this social aspect of films, and even empathy, by creating the illusion that you are more important than the next person: ‘You will buy this because you are special.’ That is horrible.
Every clinical encounter is an opportunity to generate social capital. Even in situations where patient needs are complex or seemingly insurmountable, it is the empathy and goodwill which makes the difference.
I hope people who read my books feel empathy for us and

I hope people who read my books feel empathy for us and really see us as complicated people.
We need to teach our children empathy and care and love and communication and social responsibility in preparation for adulthood.
Bottom 10 Percent progressives are not enthusiastic about concentrations of wealth. But that’s not what keeps them up at night. Their focus is on deprivation and lack of opportunity. They’re motivated by empathy for people who are suffering, rather than outrage over unjustified wealth.
If the spectrum linking everyday depression to Major Depression sometimes hinders understanding of it, it also offers an opportunity for empathy. Because almost everyone, at some point, experiences feelings of sadness, of hopelessness, of emptiness, not to mention lethargy and irritability.
Republicans rarely criticize Obama for lack of empathy – in part because liberals have traditionally been seen as standing up for the weak and the vulnerable. Conservatives can be just as empathetic. But they believe that, in most cases, it’s not government‘s role to be the primary dispenser of empathy.
Posh people blow my mind. Apart from empathy, they’re good at everything – true survivalists.
What makes us different from other species is our capacity for compassion and empathy with the struggles of other people.
Students read for tests and because their parents ask them to, but I think it’s very important to tell children that you can read for fun, too, and to understand human spirit. It builds empathy.
Writing fiction is an act of imaginative empathy.
Becoming a reader grows our horizons, our appetite for the good, the true and the beautiful, and our 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.
You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you’re a writer.
Empathy is a skill like any other human skill – and if you get a chance to practice, you can get better at it.
I think I identify as a comedian before kind of anything else. Before I identify as a person, as a human being with empathy.
Books by women, people of color, LGBTQ authors, differently abled people, and non-Americans are a great way of broadening horizons and building empathy.
Having emotional intelligence allows you to manage your emotions, show empathy, and prevent you from getting distracted. It also helps you solve problems and be a more likable person.
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.
Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.
My own feeling is we need more compassion, we need more empathy, we need more togetherness, in terms of working together.
Cindy McCain
Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It’s the impetus for creating change.
Max Carver
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.
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.
In a high-IQ job pool, soft skills like discipline, drive and empathy mark those who emerge as outstanding.
Tony Blair has made a good contribution to the cause of peace in Ireland. He has made a great effort to understand it. He has great empathy with the need to resolve the conflict.
When you see yourself as the center of things, it deprives you of a certain level of empathy.
I think one of my better gifts as a writer is empathy.
Jonathan Tropper
Deciding to listen with open ears and an open heart brings us together. We need to seek to really understand each other. We need to demonstrate empathy. If we can make these individual connections, we can strengthen our communities and nation.
Negotiation is empathy. It’s almost trite to say that if you can’t put yourself in the seat of the other person you’re speaking with, you’re not going to do well. It’s not about being a bully, not about making offers people can’t refuse.
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.
All those chemicals that create empathy only work when you are in a room together.
If you list the qualities that we consider feminine, they are patience, understanding, empathy, supportiveness, a desire to nurture. Our culture tells us those are feminine traits, but they’re really just human.
Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of

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.
Matthieu Ricard
People complain not because something sucks. People complain because they’re looking for empathy and to feel connected with those around them. Unfortunately, complaining is maybe the least useful way to connect with other human beings.
Some of the most common pitfalls I see occur when authors don’t check their privilege. Billions are living in a personal apocalypse right this second, so a little research and empathy can go a long way toward developing a convincing world.
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.
The main tenet of design thinking is empathy for the people you’re trying to design for. Leadership is exactly the same thing – building empathy for the people that you’re entrusted to help.
David M. Kelley
I feel like there is a real lack of empathy – not just in American society, it’s definitely happening in Britain as well – and it’s heartbreaking that people can see something and not feel it.
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?
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.
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.
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 people feel like other people are very different from them… And that people who are different from them are actually sort of unworthy of the same rights or empathy. I don’t understand that.
A deep appreciation for politics comes from empathy for our fellow human beings and their diverse paths through life.
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.
Cinematography speaks to everything that women do inherently well: It’s multitasking, it’s empathy, and it’s channeling visuals into human emotion.
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.
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.
Empathy is not a betrayal of one’s cause.
I’ve been fascinated by the idea that evil is the absence of empathy.
John Connolly
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.
Empathy is one of our greatest tools of business that is most underused.
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.
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 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.
Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn.
Alice Miller
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.
Empathy is an uncomfortable force in politics.
To me, a political song is also a personal song. Most political activism has been driven by empathy for other people and the desire for a world that’s less divisive. Even if songs aren’t overtly political, they can make a listener more empathetic.
Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in 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.
I think our jobs as parents is to raise our children with empathy – to figure out who this little character is, almost from birth, and then guide them to fulfill their best potential.
Travel is the only way to get empathy for other people’s mindsets – to know their struggles and what they’re drawn to.
In my work as an actor, I have been given even greater

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.
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.
Resilience is, of course, necessary for a warrior. But a lack of empathy isn’t.
What Mr. Obama wants in a nominee isn’t really ’empathy’ and ‘understanding.’ He wants a liberal, activist Supreme Court justice.
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.
Most people have the ability to turn their empathy engine back on, but there’s such a seductive burn to not being empathetic.
A love of reading shows empathy, the desire to understand how others live or act or might act – and why.
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.
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.