“I think it's a very stark marker of what kind of president we have that, from all available evidence, Donald Trump has not read a book, as an adult. This is not someone who sits down in the evening to consider the latest bestseller, let alone Tolstoy - but who is very very active on this medium that requires no discipline and no attention and no empathy. It is all about retweeting praise of oneself or very quickly or poorly considered, ill-typed, misspelled diatribes against other people.” PeopleThinkingKindBookPresidentAttentionTrumpDisciplineEmpathyEvidenceAdultsPraiseIllOneselfAvailableActiveMediumsEveningStarksMarkersNo Empathy Author:Ben H. Winters
“The great leaders that I have worked with are people who have a good sense of empathy with other people. They can walk a factory floor, or walk through a battalion and smell if there's something wrong.” PeopleIfsWalksLeaderEmpathySmellFactoriesGreat LeaderGood Sense Author:Colin Powell
“Some people naturally have a sense of empathy and an understanding of how to bring their followers to do things. They become great politicians.” PeopleUnderstandingPoliticianEmpathyFollowers Author:Colin Powell
“There are many qualities of a great leader. Passion is one, empathy is another, listening is another, decisiveness is another. I think a great leader makes people feel comfortable, so that they feel that they're allowed to be stupid, they're not afraid to give their opinions.” PeopleThinkingGivingFeelsPassionQualityLeaderOpinionStupidListeningComfortableEmpathyNot AfraidGreat LeaderDecisiveness Author:Sherry Lansing
“All people share the same desire to be treated equally. We all go through similar emotional journeys from love to hate, rejection to acceptance. I think the most important thing for dance right now is to allow for more empathy and understanding between people of different races and socioeconomic statuses. In our society we need to build bridges.” PeopleThinkingImportantDifferentDesireHateUnderstandingJourneyShareAcceptanceEmotionalEmpathyRejectionLove Hate Author:Dana Tai Soon Burgess
“What characteristics are most important in creative workers? One quality you need is inventiveness. You need to be able to take whatever product or service you are providing and figure out ways of making it better, faster, cheaper. The other quality is empathy and insight into what people might want, even though they don't even know their wants, probably because there's no product or service to test their wants.” PeopleImportantQualityCreativeEmpathyInsightCreative WorkInventiveness Author:Robert Reich
“When people are really suffering, and we know they're suffering, that question can be a very difficult one. Inadvertently, I think without anyone meaning it, it communicates a lack of empathy.” PeopleThinkingSufferingDifficultEmpathyCommunicate Author:Sheryl Sandberg
“For us what we're trying to do is find the right balance of creating a space for emotion that leads to a sense of empathy and solidarity rather than a sense of division. In my most grandiose moments I think of HuffPost as a platform that makes solidarity possible, that really thinking about the emotional content of stories is a way to help people who think, or who have been manipulated to think, that they're interests are opposed to one another, that they actually are aligned in a fundamental way and they're actually in the same boat.” PeopleThinkingTryingMomentsHelpingInterestEmotionEmotionalBalanceEmpathyBoatSolidarity Author:Lydia Polgreen
“I've had empathy toward what Carson McCullers calls "the invisible people" all my life and was inherently interested in what redeemed Mancil Travis, what fueled Mancil, what destroyed Mancil, etc. I think everyone wants redemption including Mancil.” PeopleThinkingEmpathyInvisibleRedemption Author:Will Kimbrough
“We try to approach everything in Life After Hate and Exit USA with compassion. While we really promote approaching things with compassion and empathy, because that's what changed us, it's very difficult knowing there are very virulent, vile people who are focused on furthering the Donald Trump cause. Right now we're dealing with a lot of fake news, misinformation, propaganda, parody. My goal is still trying to reach people through compassionate means, and to get them access to real information. My goal is to share my story and get people out of their bubble, so they can empathize.” PeopleTryingMeanRealHateDifficultGoalCompassionShareChangedEmpathyFocusedPropagandaFakeCompassionateBubblesMisinformation Author:Christian Picciolini
“Even if someone doesn't look like you or you don't know people like this in your real life, you get to know them and you get to see their humanity and you get to empathize with them. Our hope is that through empathy that can spark change. We hope people start talking to each other and our show sparks conversation because we need to start talking to each other, not at each other.” PeopleRealHumanityLike YouEmpathyReal Life Author:Gina Prince-Bythewood
“For a very long time, people have been saying to me, "What if you want to do this approach with every kid?" For a behaviorally challenging kid, you're parenting this way just to help bring the kid's behavior under control and to greatly reduce conflict. But you want to teach all kids the skills that are on the better side of human nature: empathy, appreciating how one's behavior is affecting other people, resolving disagreements in ways that do not involve conflict, taking another's perspective, honesty.” PeopleLongHelpingKidsChallengesTeachHuman NatureHonestyPerspectiveConflictBehaviorEmpathyAppreciateWhat IfDisagreement Author:Ross W. Greene
“I believe in empathy. When religion provides that for people, it's the best thing in the world.” PeopleWorldBelieveI BelieveEmpathy Author:Demetri Martin
“I think the only productive way to approach characters, and frankly people in life, is through empathy. The minute we call someone a villain, we are choosing to part with empathy and that can be a slippery slope, both as an actor and a human being.” PeopleThinkingCharacterEmpathyProductiveVillain Author:Bryce Pinkham
“The difference between deafness and any other disability is that there is no way to put yourself in a position of knowing what it would be like because you can't stop yourself from hearing your own breath or your own heartbeat. You can not remove sound entirely from your life. You can get a sense of what being blind is like by closing and covering your eyes which provides a source of empathy because we can all project ourselves to that. But people who think they can project themselves into deafness are mistaken because you can't.” PeopleThinkingEyeEmpathyBlindDisabilityMistakenHeartbeat Author:Richard Masur
“I'm more attuned than ever to the proliferation of groups that are working for justice and equality. They're all over the country. We want the people who watch "A House Divided" and other stories in our America Divided series to realize that there are structures that reinforce inequality and inequity, and that our job as good people is to work together to dismantle those structures. We're hoping that viewers will see what they have in common with other Americans, have empathy and become more united.” PeopleCountryTogetherHouseRealizingJusticeCommonEmpathyInequalityWorking TogetherGood People Author:Solly Granatstein
“When you write about people three dimensionally, it inspires a sense of empathy. That would be something that I want people to take away from all my writing, a feeling of emotionality, connection, and empathy.” PeopleWritingFeelingsInspireEmpathy Author:Sarah Gerard
“Throughout our history, there has been a long list of those we've been conditioned to hate. The British, French, Spanish, Germans, Japanese, Russians, Communists, Northern Koreans, Vietnamese, Iranians, Taliban, and both northerners and southerners in America are some of the people we've been encouraged at various times to call enemies and to hate. The list is long, and as time passes, those we were assigned to hate we later were told should be removed from our hate list. The enemy is obviously hatred itself. Have empathy for your assigned enemy.” PeopleLongHateEnemyEmpathyHatredVariousCommunistKoreanTalibanTime PassesSoutherner Author:Wayne Dyer
“With empathy you know in your heart that it's not a sign of weakness to attempt to understand that the people we call terrorists have placed the same label on us, and that the use of force will create a counter force, a never-ending saga of killing and hate. Ending war involves cultivating empathy in our policies and the love of God in our hearts. As the Native Americans reminded us: No tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves.” PeopleHeartWarHateFightingTreePolicyEmpathyWeaknessKillingFoolishTerroristGod LoveNativeNative AmericanSaga Author:Wayne Dyer
“What we're trying to do in conversational intelligence is not only define that trust continuum for people, not only helping them notice, which is so important, what's happening in them and others when distrust lives, but also how to bring people in trust. When they do, what happens, this part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex is loaded with wisdom, integrity, strategy, insights, empathy, foresight. It's beautiful. It's so designed for that, and often it's turned off because people don't have trust with each other.” PeopleTryingImportantHelpingBeautifulBrainIntegrityEmpathyStrategyInsightDistrustForesight Author:Judith E. Glaser
“Some people who are recovering from depression want to use the lessons they're learned in coping with depression and their empathy for people with depression. Others want their career to have nothing to do with depression.” PeopleEmpathyCoping Author:Marty Nemko
“Musicians know all about unemployment. You're unemployed a lot, and I think there's a great deal of empathy between musicians and people who are out of work.” PeopleThinkingMusicianEmpathy Author:Billy Joel
“Hillary Clinton`s unfavorable ratings at an all-time high at 60 percent. That Donald Trump is trusted more than she by the American voter. There`s a very important attribute that goes to empathy and compassion in connective tissue with voters. The question of who cares more about people like you? That`s a measurement that President Barack Obama beat Governor Mitt Romney on, like, 82 to 15. Clinton and Trump were tied on that. That`s a remarkable figure when you think about how Democrats normally have an advantage in that way.” PeopleThinkingImportantCarePresidentCompassionLike YouEmpathyClintonDemocratBarackRemarkableTrustedPresident Barack Obama Author:Kellyanne Conway
“I would hesitate to tell people to stop being kind or sympathetic to sociopath. But just like loyalty, some things that can be taken advantage of are empathy, sympathy, and our tendency to pity somebody when something has gone wrong in their life.” PeopleKindTakenEmpathyLoyaltyPityBe KindSympatheticSociopath Author:Martha Stout
“Literature sucks you into another psyche. So the creation of empathy necessarily influences how you'll behave to other people.” PeopleLiteratureInfluenceCreationEmpathyBehave Author:Barbara Kingsolver
“It's why I fell in love with movies. You can sit in a movie theater and be transported to a place that you never get to go and be a person who you never in your life would get to be and feel something and have empathy for people and see things from another point of view.” PeopleEmpathyPoint Of ViewMovie Theater Author:Cherien Dabis
“I think that you have to experience darkness to feel empathy. For all of my failings - and I have many - I do have a complete ability to emphasize with people. And that all goes down to being "other." When you're young you think otherness is a state only you possess. When you get older you realize, "Actually, there's so many of us." In that we find community.” PeopleThinkingRealizingCommunityAbilityDarknessFailingEmpathy Author:Alison Moyet
“I hope that if the people who read my work encounter people in the real world who are like the characters that I write about, that maybe that might make them feel empathy for those people. I know it sounds idealistic in a way, but I do hope that my work maybe changes some minds, and that my work makes readers see people as human that maybe before they read my work they might not have seen as humans, and those people include me and my family and my kids, people in my community.” PeopleWorldWritingMindRealCharacterKidsCommunityEmpathyMy FamilyReal World Author:Jesmyn Ward
“We don't want to blame the victim. The civil rights movement had a profound effect on the United States and on the American mind, maybe unique in the world. Once we realized how victimized people of color had been, an honest empathy went out and that's how we got civil rights legislation.” PeopleWorldMindHonestUniqueEmpathyVictimBlameProfoundCivil RightsCivil Rights Movement Author:Jerome Kagan
“If you just try to make rational arguments about why people should care about Congo and how 5 million people have died, then people tend not to be receptive. But once you've created a connection of empathy, rational arguments can play a supportive role.” PeopleTryingCareEmpathyArgumentRationalSupportiveCongo Author:Nicholas D. Kristof
“The problem of empathy is pretty universal, and pretty much breaks down across America. People can't feel beyond their drawn borders. And skin color and culture have a lot to do with that.” PeopleProblemCultureBreakEmpathySkinsBreaking Down Author:Karan Mahajan
“I guess my point in general is that, if you look closely, who is in politics to self-identify - these are the people who flip easily, from right to left, pro-Muslim to anti-Muslim, etc. - versus who, whether on the right or left, is moved by genuine interest and empathy.” PeopleInterestEmpathyMoved Author:Karan Mahajan
“When I talk about an "empathy bank," I don't mean literally opening up a bank and putting in deposits. What I mean is that the more we can, as individuals and as members of a community, empathize with, understand the pain and uncertainty economic crisis causes other people, the more we lay the groundwork for political change.” PeopleMeanPainPoliticalIndividualCommunityEconomicEmpathyCrisisUncertainty Author:Sasha Abramsky
“I think most people who decide to become a musician have to be prepared for some degree of struggle. It makes the art better if you go through some struggles. To be an artist, in any form, you have to develop some sense of compassion and empathy - it's an important quality for everyone to have, on a human level. But I think, as part of our job, you have to be able to do that, so suffering, tends - if you allow it - to let you look on the bright side. It will help with those senses.” PeopleThinkingArtImportantHelpingArtistSufferingQualityCompassionStruggleMusicianEmpathyArt IsBe PreparedBright Side Author:Reeve Carney
“I realized I had written maybe, I dunno, the first ever asexual love song. Where it's really just about a fear of dying alone - you need contact, you need love, you need empathy. You need this relationship but if there's no sex involved, people act like it's not a legitimate relationship.” PeopleSongDyingLove YouEmpathyI RealizedNeed LoveFear Of Dying Author:Bradford Cox
“When you start getting into your politics it's like you have to be vulnerable and you have to be sort of sensitive. Because if it's always like straight aggression all the time, there becomes no empathy for the stance that you're taking. You're not telling people to think, you're telling them what to think. And also you have to be honest with yourself on that, too.” PeopleThinkingHonestLike YouEmpathyVulnerableBeing HonestSensitiveAggressionHonest With YourselfBe Honest With Yourself Author:Billie Joe Armstrong
“Empathy - that is, caring about people and acting responsibly on that care, not just for yourself, but for others - this is something that Barack Obama understands very well. He was a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago for ten years. As an expert on the Constitution and on our family values, he understands very well that the country is fundamentally about caring for one another. The day after his speech, he was interviewed on CNN, and Anderson Cooper asked him what patriotism was. He said patriotism begins with caring for one another.” PeopleCountryCareValuesActingEmpathyConstitutionCaringBarackOur FamilyFamily Values Author:George Lakoff
“We now know, from the latest research about neurons, that we are hard-wired for empathy. We're hard-wired for cooperation. That is something about what we are as people - what it means to be a human being. And what Barack Obama was addressing was not just race or just the nature of politics. The great speeches address who we are as people, what it means to be a human being.” PeopleMeanEmpathyBarackCooperation Author:George Lakoff
“My book is going to be called Against Empathy, which may give you a feeling for where my argument is going to go. Whenever I talk about this, I have to begin in the most boring of all possible ways: by defining my terms. By "empathy," some people mean everything that is good - compassion, kindness, warmth, love, being a mensch, changing the world - and I'm for all of those things. I'm not a monster.” PeopleWorldGivingMeanBookFeelingsTermLove IsCompassionKindnessEmpathyArgumentBoringChanging The WorldWarmth Author:Paul Bloom
“When people want to inspire you to turn against some group of people, they'll often use empathy. When Obama wanted to bomb Syria, he drew our attention to the victims of chemical warfare. And in both of the Iraq wars, politicians said, "Look at the horrific things that are happening." I'm not a pacifist. I think the suffering of innocent people can be a catalyst for moral action. But empathy puts too much weight on the scale in favor of war. Empathy can really lead to violence.” PeopleThinkingWarActionSufferingAttentionMoralViolenceInspirePoliticianEmpathyVictimInnocentSyriaIraq WarHorrificPacifist Author:Paul Bloom
“It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.” PeopleWritingBookAliveTaughtEmpathyLibraryConnectedPainful Things Author:James A. Baldwin
“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.” PeopleActingSeeingEmpathyShoes Author:Christian Bale
“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.” PeopleThinkingMatterEyeHappenedFameEmpathyProfoundAccidentsManifestMisunderstandingPublic Eye Author:Alanis Morissette
“While eschewing emotion - and its companion, vulnerability - Obama should be careful not to sacrifice empathy, the 'I feel your pain' connection that sustained Clinton. This connection is the shorthand people use to measure their leaders' intentions. If people believe you're on their side, they will trust your decisions.” PeopleIfsFeelsShouldBelieveUsePainSidesDecisionEmotionLeaderSacrificeEmpathyConnectionsIntentionClintonCarefulVulnerabilityCompanionBe CarefulShorthand Author:Dee Dee Myers
“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.” PeopleIfsWorldHas BeensPoliticalDesireSongEmpathyDrivenActivismListenersEmpatheticPolitical Activism Author:Conor Oberst
“Having played many roles of scientific intellect I do have an empathy for that world. It's been hard on me because flying the Enterprise for seven years in Star Trek and sitting in Cerebro in X-men has led people to believe that I know what I'm talking about. But I'm still trying to work out how to operate the air conditioning unit on my car.” PeopleKnowsMenWorldTryingYearsBelieveStillsHardStarsTalkingRolesAirCarEmpathySittingSevenWork OutIntellectFlyingEnterpriseUnitsSeven YearsConditioningX MenTrying HardAir Conditioning Author:Patrick Stewart
“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.” PeopleHumansCareRelationshipMiddleCreaturesEmpathyHorseEastHorribleMiddle EastCamelsNo Empathy Author:Rachel Weisz
“Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.” PeoplePoliticsSpeakSilencePowerListeningThousandTenEmpathySilentNoiseLive LifeLobbyistsLobbying Author:Napoleon Bonaparte
“We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.” PeopleLightSufferingEmpathyRegard Book:Letters Papers from Prison Source: Letters Papers from Prison
“The struggle of my life created empathy... I could relate to pain... being abandoned... having people not love me.” PeopleLovePainStruggleEmotionalEmpathyRelateAbandoned Author:Oprah Winfrey