Quotes About Not Empathy

#1. Because whenever a woman kills her child, every other mother - at least, every one who's honest with herself - has a flash of sympathy. Not empathy. They don't want to have done it, cannot imagine doing it. But they know.

Laura Lippman

#2. Poets have to be sensitive to their audience, but it does not mean that they censor themselves. I realise my audience is diverse. Some will read with empathy and curiosity while others will take offense.

John Barton

#3. Empathy is cloaked in our actions - as in, we might be experiencing empathy but not realize it's empathy.

Leslie Jamison

#4. A long list of propositions does not necessarily make a coherent argument

Andrew Pettegree

#5. If it is not tempered by compassion, and empathy, reason can lead men and women into a moral void. (95)

Karen Armstrong

#6. Deeply affecting and compulsively readable, The Fifty-First State displays Lisa Borders' emotional acuity, first-rate skills as a storyteller, and profound empathy not only for her two compelling main characters but for an oft-neglected region and a disappearing way of life.

Christopher Castellani

#7. Holden went to his bungalow and began to understand that he was not alone in the world, and also that he was afraid for the sake of another,
which is the most soul-satisfying fear known to man.

Rudyard Kipling

#8. Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others ...

Ta-Nehisi Coates

#9. Understanding is a creative act in a dimension we do not see.

Elizabeth Goudge

#10. The hearing that is only in the ears is one thing. The hearing of the understanding is another. But the hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty to the ear, or to the mind.

Zhuangzi

#11. 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.

Daniel Goleman

#12. It has been a period where people have been far nicer to one another in every possible way. I'm not saying it's because we're dropping our empathy that we're nicer to each other, just that the drop doesn't seem to be causing any harm.

Paul Bloom

#13. 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.

Gayle Forman

#14. Empathy is a virtue, but it should not be a guiding judicial principle.

Gary Bauer

#15. Reading can almost be viewed as empathy training. Movies have better action scenes, sure. But books are uniquely suited to showing you the inside of another person's head. That is the root of empathy. That's the first step to understanding you're not alone in the world.

Patrick Rothfuss

#16. I think one of the biggest political failures, and the biggest social failures, over the past few years has been the failure of empathy; not being able to look at the other person down the street.

Colum McCann

#17. Most people assume that autistic people are not capable of empathy.

Claire Danes

#18. By acquiescing in an act that causes such suffering to a living creature, who among us is not diminished?

Rachel Carson

#19. Empathy is not simply a matter of trying to imagine what others are going through, but having the will to muster enough courage to do something about it. In a way, empathy is predicated upon hope.

Cornel West

#20. Empathy is the main thing, putting yourself in somebody else's shoes and trying not to judge.

Keira Knightley

#21. What's so exciting and terrifying about the writing process is that it really is an act of exploration and discovery. With all of us, not just writers, there is a sort of knowledge of the other. We have a lot more in common than we realize, and I think writing is really a sustained act of empathy.

Andre Dubus

#22. Empathy is patiently and sincerely seeing the world through the other person's eyes. It is not learned in school; it is cultivated over a lifetime.

Albert Einstein

#23. It is not the perceived power of money and fame that will change the course of events in one's life, but empathy.

Trever Hagen

#24. A compassionate government does not need to pay too much attention to those who don't have needs. True leadership is to fulfill a need of the needy. People who have needs need attention indeed! Be a true leader!

Israelmore Ayivor

#25. Empathy has some unfortunate features - it is parochial, narrow-minded, and innumerate. We're often at our best when we're smart enough not to rely on it.

Paul Bloom

#26. When in Reading Gaol he told me that the warders in the dock had been gentle and kind, but the visit of the chaplain in his first prison began with these words:
'Mr. Wilde, did you have morning prayers in your house?'
'I am sorry ... I fear not.'
'You see where you are now!

Charles Ricketts

#27. Desperation does not breed empathy or clear thinking.

Joseph Fink

#28. I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.

Maya Angelou

#29. empathy is not a reflex that makes us sympathetic to everyone we lay eyes upon. It can be switched on and off, or thrown into reverse, by our construal of the relationship we have with a person. Its head is turned by cuteness, good looks, kinship, friendship, similarity, and communal solidarity.

Steven Pinker

#30. Why must you know the details of my troubles to have compassion? Is it not enough to show compassion simply because you know that everyone has troubles?

Richelle E. Goodrich

#31. Writing fiction is one of the greatest forms of empathy. It's not enough to simply write from the perspective of your characters...you have to feel what they feel.

Melody Robinette

#32. Kindness is love in action, not feeling emotions or thoughts of empathy only. Kindness is doing!

Shannon L. Alder

#33. 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.

Antonya Nelson

#34. We are all sorry for something. It's what makes us human, says Seda. But sometimes empathy is not enough. Sometimes empathy needs to be followed by action.

Aline Ohanesian

#35. For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.

Milan Kundera

#36. Empathy lies at the heart of Gatsby, like so many other great novels
the biggest sin is to be blind to others' problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence.

Azar Nafisi

#37. I know you want me to feel some sympathy for them, but that's not who I am. I care only about those I know, and even then, not all that deeply. Strangers get nothing from me.

Rachel Caine

#38. Education, from Addams' perspective, must not merely make us more adept at defending ourselves against those with different agendas. Education should increase our powers of empathy and our ability to act in concert with others.

Michael S. Roth

#39. Those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

J.K. Rowling

#40. Empathy is connecting with the emotion that someone is experiencing, not the event or the circumstance.

Brene Brown

#41. While my sister and I were reminded we did not cause this pain, it was knowing that because we broke our silence about what had been done to us, our parents were hurting. That knowledge was hard on us.

Erin Merryn

#42. Understanding Subtle & Not-So-Subtle Motivations, Helps Grow Consideration, Empathy & Compassion, Which Leads to Forgiveness

Miriam Sachael

#43. I think any time anybody sees the bad guy show emotion and you're not hitting the audience over the head, there's always a tinge of empathy for that individual.

Paul Wesley

#44. I am not interested in your fine calibrations of empathy or your great mission to protect the river of history. I just to live my own life, and I want to spend it having my own private fucked-up little emotions.

Bee Ridgway

#45. People like it when others fail and suffer. They get assured they are not alone in that predicament

Bangambiki Habyarimana

#46. I'm not even sure if empathy is an act, it could be a disposition.

Michael Helm

#47. Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections.

Mary Baker Eddy

#48. When we see others cry it is difficult, not because of feeling their pain, but your own.

Paula Heller Garland

#49. Let's go old school to impress people. Wear a smile, rather than a branded dress. Crease out our differences with understanding. And, use empathy, care, and patience as accessories. Then, let's make a conversation, not talk.
Ah, what a fine world it would be! Fine, pure and minus artifice.

Saru Singhal

#50. Any man filled with empathy is capable of gaining valuable insights on the human condition through the suffering of others. You do not need to suffer to know suffering, but you need empathy first to identify and feel the suffering of others around you.

Suzy Kassem

#51. Empathy is a creative act. It is the act of imagining ourselves not only in another's shoes, but perhaps inhabiting their very heart and soul.

Michele Jennae

#52. Empathy is a kind of care but it's not the only kind of care, and it's not always enough.

Leslie Jamison

#53. Indeed, insight is the true hallmark of empathy. The power of true empathy is its ability to give us a fresh understanding of the other person's emotions and thoughts to illuminate an aspect of their experience that would not have been apparent to us had we not stepped into their shoes.

Guy Winch

#54. We've reached a point where we are not a very empathetic people, and art without empathy is art without an audience. My basic viewpoint is that without art we're alone.

Jamake Highwater

#55. Just about every animal," Scott says - not just mammals and birds - "can learn, recognize individuals, and respond to empathy.

Sy Montgomery

#56. Humans have long since possessed the tools for crafting a better world. Where love, compassion, altruism and justice have failed, genetic manipulation will not succeed.

Gina Maranto

#57. I'm not sure what gave me empathy for animals, but I do know that I have always loved animals since I was a very young child. I always felt a need to nurture and protect them. Perhaps I could see they needed that, and caring for them made me happy.

Alison Eastwood

#58. An empath is capable of taking on the grief of another in order to lessen their suffering. In order to not be consumed with pain, an empath should have an outlet for that pain lest they lose themselves in feeling for others.

Donna Lynn Hope

#59. Simple kindness as a means to no other end than itself is not something that springs up and flourishes on its own. Compassion is cultivated. Empathy needs watching over. It's not enough to simply plant the seeds. Their fruits are not native to the soil. Left to itself, the untended heart grows cold.

Marc Parent

#60. In a democracy, a man who does not listen cannot lead.

David S. Broder

#61. And so your personality is shaped. You know too much, and this knowledge makes you wary. You grow fearful and mistrustful. The expression of emotion does not come naturally, so you learn to fake it. To pretend. To display an empathy you don't actually feel.

Christina Baker Kline

#62. And let me say this as a politician I can promise you this, political leaders will never take risks if the people do not push them to take some risks. You must create the change that you want to see. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things.

Barack Obama

#63. Human empathy, while not found on any chart of human anatomy, is the reason we instinctively hurt for our children ... it is the reason that one human being's intensely personal tests and triumphs can be harnessed to the good of countless others.

Keith Ablow

#64. The measure of a friendship is not its physicality but its significance. Good friendships, online or off, urge us toward empathy; they give us comfort and also pull us out of the prisons of our selves.

Esther Earl

#65. The realization that you're not always standing down there on the field merely to win, to be successful, was very liberating. One can be successful by helping the team, the other players. All of a sudden I felt the kind of empathy for people that I hadn't felt before.

Oliver Kahn

#66. Life-Enriching Education: an education that prepares children to learn throughout their lives, relate well to others, and themselves, be creative, flexible, and venturesome, and have empathy not only for their immediate kin but for all of humankind.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#67. Depression can seem absurdly self aggrandizing to those who do not experience it, But that does not make it any less painful to those who do.

Richard Brookhiser

#68. Daumier paints with an enormous capacity for absolute empathy; a complete identification of himself with the figures he paints. He sets forth what it feels like to do something; not what somebody looks like doing it.

David Sylvester

#69. The way to understand any enemy is to realize that, from his perspective, he is not a villain but a hero.

Desmond Tutu

#70. The absence on the panel of anyone who could become pregnant accidentally or discover her salary was five thousand dollars a yearless than that of her male counterpart meant there was a hole in the consciousness of the committee that empathy, however welcome, could not entirely fill.

Anna Quindlen

#71. It is characteristic to believe that those in need are given to, that the squeaky hinge is the one that gets the oil, but in the realm of emotions this is not so. It is the person who does not solicit liking and love, admiration and respect, sympathy and empathy to whom they are freely given.

Jo Coudert

#72. Sure, the outcome was favourable, but what was the cost? Wasn't changing the way she felt about something not far from taking away her free will altogether?

Cassandra Page

#73. Being autistic does not mean I don't have empathy. Stereotypes are harmful. If anything I hyper feel everything and have to try to shut off to cope.

Tina J. Richardson

#74. I have empathy towards bullying. Not about punishing the bully but empowering the victim. We have a tendency to use the word "bully" and other words in the wrong situations, thus desensitizing and lessening the impact of the true situation.

Renee Lawless

#75. Thus evolved some members of the Core - not altruists, but desperate survivalists who realized that the only way ultimately to win their never-ending zero-sum game was to stop the game. And to stop the game they needed to evolve into a species capable of empathy.

Dan Simmons

#76. If the other persons behavior is not in harmony with my own needs, the more I empathize with them and their needs, the more likely I am to get me own needs met.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#77. Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.

Peter A. Levine

#78. From empathy and sexuality to science inclination and extroversion, statistical analysis of 122 different characteristics involving 13,301 individuals shows that men and women, by and large, do not fall into different groups.

Christian Rudder

#79. Empathy and joy of life are closely connected. For most of us, deep and intense moments of happiness are often, if not always, tied to deep and intense contact with others.
Training our empathetic abilities is therefore also training joy of life.

Iben Dissing Sandahl

#80. Empathy makes you more aware of other people's suffering, but it's not clear it actually motivates you to take moral action or prevents you from taking immoral action.

David Brooks

#81. The opposite of anger is not calmness, its empathy.

Mehmet Oz

#82. I did not know how to reach him, how to catch up with him ... The land of tears is so mysterious.

Antoine De Saint-Exupery

#83. There is nothing like another's perspective to remind you that your way is not the right way; it is simply your way.

Chris Matakas

#84. Performing is about developing empathy, which leads us to a broader view of the world and encourages us to develop compassion; so we can comfort each other and not be so brutal with each other.

Willem Dafoe

#85. 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.

David Gregory

#86. I traffic in empathy. I try to be vulnerable with people so they can be vulnerable back. I've always been searching for empathy in other people. It's when I feel most not alone.

Jose Antonio Vargas

#87. Mercy is compassion, kindness, empathy, forgiveness. While grace might be described as blessings and favor from God that we do not necessarily deserve, mercy represents not receiving what we do deserve because of the patience, love, and atonement of the Master.

Brent L. Top

#88. 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

#89. Never say you understand someone's pain if you haven't felt the same, because not only would you sound mocking but also ignorant.

Lolah Runda

#90. True empathy is not self-focused but other-oriented. Instead of making humanity the measure of all things, we need to evaluate other species by what they are.

Frans De Waal

#91. Empathy is not merely the basic principle of artistic creation. It is also the only path by which one can reach the truth about life and society.

Kafu Nagai

#92. Any disease support community is a place of deep bonds and empathy, and there are thousands if not tens of thousands of them.

Howard Rheingold

#93. You don't need religion to have morals. If you can't decide right from wrong then you lack empathy, not religion.

Kane

#94. The true measure of a best friend is where they are when you "make" the biggest decision of your life, not where they were during the decision process.

Shannon L. Alder

#95. With empathy, I'm fully with them, and not full of them - that's sympathy.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#96. Sweetie," Dino said, coming over to put his arm around her shoulder. He tipped her head up and looked into her eyes with great empathy. "You can't fuck a statue. At least not at that angle. You'd at least have to tip it onto its back first, and as a conservator, I can't recommend it.

Rosanna Leo

#97. Empathy takes time, and efficiency is for things, not people.

Stephen Covey

#98. In all people I see myself - none more, and not one a barleycorn less; And the good or bad I say of myself, I say of them.

Walt Whitman

#99. So I am learning to pretend, to smile and nod, to display empathy I do not feel. I am learning to pass, to look like everyone else, even though I feel broken inside.

Christina Baker Kline

#100. Love is not without its flaws. The stronger the love, the more it tests you. Compassion and empathy will make true love persist.

Khalil Gibran