33 Inspiring Quotes About Empathy

In a world where understanding and connection often take a backseat, empathy serves as a vital bridge linking our hearts and minds. It's the gentle art of seeing the world through another's eyes, feeling their emotions, and acknowledging their journeys. Words have the profound ability to encapsulate this essence, inspiring change and fostering deeper connections. In this collection, we've curated 33 of the most inspiring quotes about empathy that promise to stir your soul and remind you of the power of compassionate understanding. Whether you seek to nurture your relationships or gain a greater insight into the human experience, these quotes offer timeless wisdom and encouragement.

1. “None of us can choose where we shall love...” - Susan Kay

2. “All novels . . . are concerned with the enigma of the self. As soon as you create an imaginary being, a character, you are automatically confronted by the question: what is the self? How can it be grasped?” - Milan Kundera

3. “It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.” - Nathaniel Hawthorne

4. “When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.” - Abraham Lincoln

5. “He came up straight to her father, whose hands he took and wrung without a word - holding them in his for a minute or two, during which time his face, his eyes, his look, told of more sympathy than could be put into words.” - Elizabeth Gaskell

6. “I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.” - Roger Ebert

7. “I felt the kind of desperation, I think, that cancels the possibility of empathy...that makes you unkind.” - Sue Miller

8. “There are so many men, all endlessly attempting to sweep me off my feet. And there is one of you, trying just the opposite. Making sure my feet are firm beneath me, lest I fall.” - Patrick Rothfuss

9. “попробуй выучиться одному нехитрому фокусу, Глазастик, - сказал он. - Тогда тебе куда легче будет ладить с самыми разными людьми. Нельзя по-настоящему понять человека, пока не станешь на его точку зрения...- Это как?- Надо влезть в его шкуру и походить в ней.(Аттикус Финч - Глазастику Финч)” - Harper Lee

10. “It is not learning we need at all. Individuals need learning but the culture needs something else, the pulse of light on the sea, the warm urge of huddling together to keep out the cold. We need empathy, we need the eyes that still can weep.” - Lydia Millet

11. “If literature does one thing, it makes you more empathetic by making you live other lives and feel the pain of others. Ideologues don't feel the pain of others because they haven't imaginatively got under their skins.” - Yann Martel

12. “All human beings have their otherness and it is that which cries out to the heart.” - Elizabeth Goudge

13. “...It also taught me that while cruelty can be fun for a few moments, compassion has a much longer shelf life.” - Doreen Orion

14. “We are out sisters' keepers.” - Eileen Granfors

15. “Most of us tend to belittle all suffering except our own," said Mary. "I think it's fear. We don't want to come too near in case we're sucked in and have to share it.” - Elizabeth Goudge

16. “When anesthesia was developed, it was for many decades routinely withheld from women giving birth, since women were "supposed" to suffer. One of the few societies to take a contrary view was the Huichol tribe in Mexico. The Huichol believed that the pain of childbirth should be shared, so the mother would hold on to a string tied to her husband's testicles. With each painful contraction, she would give the string a yank so that the man could share the burden. Surely if such a mechanism were more widespread, injuries in childbirth would garner more attention.” - Nicholas D. Kristof

17. “Education leads to enlightenment. Enlightenment opens the way to empathy. Empathy foreshadows reform.” - Derrick A. Bell

18. “...to make art is to realize another's sadness within, realize the hidden sadness in other people's lives, to feel sad with and for a stranger.” - Marianne Wiggins

19. “By revealing to Tomas her dream about jabbing needles under her fingernails, Tereza unwittingly revealed that she had gone through his desk. If Tereza had been any other woman, Tomas would never have spoken to her again. Aware of that, Tereza said to him, Throw me out! But instead of throwing her out, he seized her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers, because at that moment he himself felt the pain under her fingernails as surely as if the nerves of her fingers led straight to his own brain.Anyone who has failed to benefit from the Devil’s gift of compassion (co-feeling) will condemn Tereza coldly for her deed, because privacy is sacred and drawers containing intimate correspondence are not to be opened. But because compassion was Tomas’s fate (or curse), he felt that he himself had knelt before the open desk drawer, unable to tear his eyes from Sabina’s letter. He understood Tereza, and not only was he incapable of being angry with her, he loved her all the more.” - Milan Kundera

20. “She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad: faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that disaster could not shake; love that, in calamity, waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air -- in themselves they were simple and sweet: perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when well sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well: she breathed into the feeling, softness, she poured round the passion, force: her voice was fine that evening; its expression dramatic: she impressed all, and charmed one.On leaving the instrument, she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat -- semi-stool, semi-cushion: the ladies were round her -- none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her, as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. What made her sing so? They never sang so. Was it proper to sing with such expression, with such originality -- so unlike a school girl? Decidedly not: it was strange, it was unusual. What was strange must be wrong; what was unusual must be improper. Shirley was judged.” - Charlotte Brontë

21. “The description of Huck’s father grabbed my full attention, and I glanced up at the book in my teacher’s hand as if to double check. My eyes bulged reflexively. Huck’s father was an abusive drunk just like mine. The boy was hopeful that a corpse found near the river was actually his dad, but it turned out not to be. It was spooky how high my hopes rose for the boy, and then sank so utterly low when the body was discovered to be a female in disguise. I should’ve mourned for the woman, but it was the boy I felt bad for.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

22. “Empathy, he once had decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet. Because, ultimately, the empathic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated.” - Philip K. Dick

23. “There are two types of empathy: the positive empathy and the negative empathy. When we are fully carried away by the unaware activities of the mirror neurons, we are under the trap of negative empathy. The negative empathy generates attachments. Out of these attachments suffering follows. Negative empathy is a kind of reaction to a situation, whereas positive empathy is internal response of peace love and tranquility.... In positive empathy, your deep tranquility, joy and peace activates the mirror neurons of the others, whereas in negative empathy your mirror neurons are activated by the disturbance of others.” - Amit Ray

24. “...the best way to forgive someone is to enter into their sufferings ...” - John Geddes

25. “Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.” - Bill Bullard

26. “Arrogance is someone claiming to have come to Christ, but they won't spend more than five minutes listening to your journey because they are more concerned about their own well being, rather than being a true disciple of Christ. Blessed is the person that takes the time to heal and hear another person so they can move on.” - Shannon L. Alder

27. “Alas! we must suffer ourselves before we can feel for others.” - Émile Gaboriau

28. “• People deserve a break. The stressed and unorganized person who doesn’t have the same priorities as you may be dealing with an autistic child, abusive spouse, fading parents, or cancer. Don’t judge people until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. Give them a break instead.” - Guy Kawasaki

29. “Familiarity is the gateway drug to empathy.” - iO Tillett Wright

30. “Sooner or later in life, we will all take our own turn being in the position we once had someone else in.” - Ashly Lorenzana

31. “Life is always going to be a series of ouch-making moments, and the question was, was I going to go all fetal position, or was I going to woman up? I went into fetal position on the bed to think about this. Fetal position turned out to be very comfortable.” - Maureen Johnson

32. “But compassion isn't about solutions. It's about giving all the love that you've got.” - Cheryl Strayed

33. “When someone is suffering, there is a deep, visceral reaction in the core of our being, a flood of empathy and a frightfully desperate compulsion to give aid.” - Bryant McGill