Empathy Quotes

"Human morality is unthinkable without empathy."

- Frans de Waal

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

- Megan Ganz

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

- Susan Sarandon

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

- Richard Eyre

"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."

- Marc Randolph

"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've been fascinated by the idea that evil is the absence of empathy."

- John Connolly

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

- Cindy McCain

"This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy."

- Alice Walker

"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."

- Andrew Shaffer

"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."

- Amit Sadh

"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."

- John Rampton

"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."

- Brian Eno

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

- Graydon Carter

"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."

- Natalie Portman

"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."

- Dayananda Saraswati

"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."

- Abraham Verghese

"A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being."

- Daniel Dennett

"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."

- Mark Manson

"Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own."

- Barbara Kingsolver

"We have to teach empathy as we do literacy."

- Bill Drayton

"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."

- Barack Obama

"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."

- Daisaku Ikeda

"Universal basic income is not a solution in search of a problem - it is the obvious solution that has been in front of us for years. It only requires us to have the vision, empathy and courage to adopt it for the American people before it is too late."

- Andrew Yang

"An exchange of empathy provides an entry point for a lot of people to see what healing feels like."

- Tarana Burke

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

- Eric Yuan

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

- Max Carver

"Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself."

- Mohsin Hamid

"Empathy is about standing in someone else's shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place."

- Daniel H. Pink

"The opposite of anger is not calmness, its empathy."

- Mehmet Oz