100 Best Empathy Quotes About Showing Compassion To Others
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In this world, full of struggles and competition for survival, we forget to empathize and share our sorrows to overcome it together.
Unless and until we are the victim, we don’t care about what others feel. It is essential to empathize to stay humane in nature; it is not something that can be done out of habit, or request, or force.
Empathy comes from within, a feeling to understand others’ pain in the same way they experience it. Criticizing is easy, but understanding and showing compassion are difficult.
But in the end, knowing others’ pain is what quotations on empathy are all about. You'll find the best quotes to help you in what to say to show empathy, examples of empathy and more. Empathy is an important value,
After you have read these best empathy quotes, do read our [positive energy quotes] and emotional quotes.
Best Quotes About Compassion And Empathy
The most crucial aspect of empathy is to understand each other and the situation people are in. Empathy quotes and empathy sayings will give you the much needed motivation to do this.
Here are some of the best empathy quotes and empathy sayings that will help you to understand the importance of understanding while empathizing, plus we have some 'To Kill A Mockingbird' empathy quotes.
1. “Empathy is understanding the sorrow or loss of another person. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes and imagine how you would feel.”
- Byron Pulsifer.
2. “Each day is not to be wasted but to be valued and used to make situations more bearable for others, to show sympathy or empathy for others, to contribute to someone else’s skills or to help change a behavior.”
- Byron Pulsifer.
3. “First of all, if you learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
- Atticus, 'To Kill A Mockingbird.'
4. “Proactive responding is the ability to listen to the other person’s feelings and empathise without taking responsibility for those feelings.”
- Clive Harman, ‘How To Communicate Effectively.’
5. “An empathic person is a good listener, patient, understanding, and kind.”
- Laura Raskin, ‘Marriage.’
6. “All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.”
- Tahereh Mafi, ‘Shatter Me.’
7. “...treat people with understanding when you can, and fake it when you can’t until you do understand.”
- Kim Harrison.
8. “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”
9. “Sometimes all a person wants is an empathetic ear; all he or she needs is to talk it out. Just offering a listening ear and an understanding heart for his or her suffering can be a big comfort.”
- Roy T. Bennett.
10. “We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘Letters And Papers From Prison.’
11. “Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you’ll be a mile away and have his shoes.”
- Steve Martin.
12. “Learning to stand in somebody else’s shoes, to see through their eyes, that’s how peace begins. And it’s up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.”
- Barack Obama.
13. “Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding the third.”
- Marge Piercy.
14. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.”
- Harper Lee.
15. “The most important thing is that we need to be understood. We need someone to be able to listen to us and to understand us. Then we will suffer less.”
- Nhat Hanh.
16. “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
- Dalai Lama.
17. “Empathy is important, openness, honesty, and an understanding for others.”
- Niko Kovac.
18. “Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.”
- Barbara Kingsolver.
19. “Empathy depends not only on one’s ability to identify someone else’s emotions but also on one’s capacity to put oneself in the other person’s place and to experience an appropriate emotional response.”
- Charles G. Morris.
20. “Empathy means both understanding others on their own terms and bringing them within the orbit of one’s own experience.”
- Jacob A. Belzen.
21. “You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.”
- John Steinbeck.
22. “Empathy is the love fire of sweet remembrance and shared understanding.”
- John Eaton.
23. “Empathy is simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of you’re not alone.”
- Brene Brown.
24. “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”
- Albert Einstein.
25. “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.
26. “You never really understand a person...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
- Harper Lee.
27. “One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient.”
- Charles M. Blow.
28. “Listening has the ability of the wizard’s alchemy. It has the power to melt the armor and to produce beauty in the midst of hatred.”
- Brian Muldoon.
29. “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.
30. “Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
- Plato.
31. “Empathy is putting yourself in another’s shoes to find out what exactly that person is feeling or going through at the given time. It basically refers to being at a common wavelength with someone.”
- Deepa Kodikal.
32. “Empathy is one of humankind’s prized possessions. Acts of consideration and kindness are inevitable when a person can mentally step into someone else’s shoes. Even if it’s just for a moment.”
- Izey Victoria Odiase.
33. “Exposure promotes understanding, understanding promotes empathy, and empathy promotes compromise.”
- F. Allen Davis.
Inspiring Compassion And Empathy Quotes
Everyone suffers while trying to reach a destination, and as a part of their journey, the least we can do is empathize and be compassionate. This is where empathy quotes and empathy sayings can help out and make you start feeling with the heart. Here are some inspiring empathy quotes and compassion quotes for you.
34. “Learning to give empathy to myself and others as often as I can each day has rendered astounding benefits....empathy leads to compassion and compassion to forgiveness and connection.”
- Judith Hanson Lasater, ‘Living Your Yoga.’
35. “Extend sympathy, empathy and compassion to others.”
- Vishnu, ‘Seven Sacred Promises.’
36. “Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another.”
– Alfred Adler.
37. “I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.”
- Walt Whitman, ‘Song Of Myself.’
38. “Empathy is a special way of coming to know another and yourself.”
– Carl R. Rogers.
39. “I call him religious who understands the suffering of others.”
- Mahatma Gandhi.
40. “The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.”
- Albert Schweitzer.
41. “A prerequisite to empathy is simply paying attention to the person in pain.”
- Daniel Goleman.
42. “If you share in a heart-felt sorrow, you can lighten the load of a friend. Sometimes facing the burden together can mend two broken hearts in the end.”
- Wes Fessle.
43. “When a good man is hurt all who would be called good must suffer with him.”
- Euripides.
44. “It’s the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else’s pain.”
- Pat Barker.
45. “The struggle of my life created empathy – I could relate to pain, being abandoned, having people not love me.”
- Oprah Winfrey.
46. “Empathetic presence involves listening to someone’s pain with what I call the five A’s: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing.”
- David Richo.
47. “The only way to change someone’s mind is to connect with them from the heart.”
- Rasheed Ogunlaru.
48. “Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping him up.”
- Jesse Jackson.
49. “Looking at various means of developing compassion, I think empathy is an important factor: the ability to appreciate others’ suffering.”
- Dalai Lama.
50. “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
― Leo Buscaglia.
51. “Anyone who has experienced a certain amount of loss in their life has empathy for those who have experienced loss.”
- Anderson Cooper.
52. “Have compassion and empathy in your heart. Many people are suffering deep emotional anguish beneath the surface of their lives, and smile even as they hurt inside.”
- Jim Palmer.
53. “Humankind seems to have an enormous capacity for savagery, for brutality, for lack of empathy, for lack of compassion.”
- Annie Lennox.
54. “Nothing is more important than empathy for another human being’s suffering. Nothing. Not career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we’re going to survive with dignity.”
- Audrey Hepburn.
55. “The functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy.”
- Dean Koontz.
56. “True compassion comes from free will by drawing empathy from within.”
- Shane Barbi.
57. “If it is not tempered by compassion and empathy, reason can lead men and women into a moral void.”
- Karen Armstrong.
58. “The ugliest thing I’ve ever seen is a human being without compassion.”
- H. Milne. P.
59. “Extend sympathy, empathy, and compassion to others.”
- Vishnu.
60. “A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.”
- Steve Maraboli.
61. “Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these.”
- George Washington Carver.
62. “Empathy is forgetting oneself in the joys and sorrows of another, so much so that you actually feel that the joy or sorrow experienced by another is your own joy and sorrow. Empathy involves complete identification with another.”
- Dada Vaswani.
63. “Empathy is the gateway; compassion is the way.”
- Scott Perry.
Fascinating Empathy Quotes
Empathy is a rare emotion in present time but it is till an important quality that one must possess. There are three types of empathy, cognitive, emotional, and compassionate. It is an essential quality of civilization. Here are some of the most iconic empathetic quotes and quotes about empathy for you to enjoy.
64. “If you do not practice empathy and forgiveness for your actions, it will be impossible to practice empathy with others.”
- Laura Raskin, ‘Marriage.’
65. “Emotional empathy is what motivates us to help others.”
- Brian Goldman, ‘The Power Of Kindness.’
66. “I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.”
- Roger Ebert.
67. “Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing.”
- Marshall B. Rosenberg.
68. “Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.”
- Oprah Winfrey.
69. “Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing. Instead of offering empathy, we often have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling. Empathy, however, calls upon us to empty our mind and listen to others with our whole being.”
- Marshall B. Rosenberg.
70. “There is no greater intelligence than kindness and empathy.”
- Bryant H. McGill.
71. “Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.”
- Mohsin Hamid.
72. “Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.”
- Malorie Blackman.
73. “When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.”
- Susan Sarandon.
74. “The opposite of anger is not calmness, its empathy.”
- Mehmet Oz.
75. “I’ve been fascinated by the idea that evil is the absence of empathy.”
- John Connolly.
76. “There’s a power in empathy.”
- Tarana Burke.
77. “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.
78. “Empathy is born out of the old biblical injunction ‘Love the neighbor as thyself.’”
- George Mcgovern.
79. “Empathy is like giving someone a psychological hug.”
- Lawrence J.
80. “I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.”
- Maya Angelou.
81. “We need empathy, we need the eyes that still can weep.”
- Lydia Millet.
82. “The highest form of knowledge is empathy.”
- Bill Bullard.
83. “Empathy is connection; it’s a ladder out of the shame hole.”
- Brené Brown.
84. “If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.”
- Dolly Parton.
85. “Empathy is the ability to step outside of your own bubble and into the bubbles of other people.”
- C. Joy Bell.
86. “I believe that lack of empathy is behind many problems, and I believe that it’s disrupting our society.”
- J.K Rowling.
87. “Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person.”
- Heinz Kohut.
88. “We rise by lifting others.”
- Robert Ingersoll.
89. “Those who underestimate others are those who lack empathy.”
- Araya.
90. “Patience and empathy are angers mortal enemies.”
- Gary Rudz.
91. “You don’t need religion to have morals. If you can’t determine right from wrong then you lack empathy, not religion.”
- Kane Bailey.
92. “Real empathy is sometimes not insisting that it will be okay, but acknowledging that it is not.”
- Sheryl Sandberg.
93. “Empathy requires known that you know nothing at all.”
- Leslie Jamison.
94. “Empaths did not come into this world to be victims we came to be warriors.”
- Anthon St. Maarten.
95. “We have to teach empathy as we do literacy.”
- Bill Drayton.
96. “If you find yourself saying ‘But I’m just being honest’, chances are you’ve just been unkind. Honesty doesn’t heal. Empathy does.”
- Dan Waldschmidt.
97. “Empathy is the most revolutionary emotion.”
- Gloria Steinem.
98. “Empathy is an antidote to righteousness, although it’s very difficult to empathize across a moral divide.”
- Jonathan Haidt.
99. “Empathy is my good friend, but she doesn’t allow me to be angry.”
- Yong Kang Chan.
100. “Empathy is more powerful than sympathy.”
- Angie Thomas.
Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for empathy quotes, then why not take a look at emotional intelligence quotes or good vibes quotes.
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Bachelor of Commerce, Master of Business Administration specializing in Marketing
Supriya JainBachelor of Commerce, Master of Business Administration specializing in Marketing
As a skilled member of the Kidadl team, Shruti brings extensive experience and expertise in professional content writing. With a Bachelor's degree in Commerce from Punjab University and an MBA in Business Administration from IMT Nagpur, Shruti has worked in diverse roles such as sales intern, content writer, executive trainee, and business development consultant. Her exceptional writing skills cover a wide range of areas, including SOP, SEO, B2B/B2C, and academic content.
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