Empathy is the ability to share someone else’s feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation. Inspirational empathy quotes will encourage growth in life, make you wiser and broaden your perspective.
If you’re searching for quotes about kindness that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of profound compassion quotes, best community quotes and famous quotes about helping others.
Most Famous Empathy Quotes
All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart. Tahereh Mafi
If you aren’t humble, whatever empathy you claim is false and probably results from some arrogance or the desire to control. But true empathy is rooted in humility and the understanding that there are many people with as much to contribute in life as you. Anand Mahindra
I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it. Maya Angelou
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
Empathy is simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of you’re not alone. Brene Brown
Empathy begins with understanding life from another person’s perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It’s all through our own individual prisms. Sterling K. Brown
You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself. John Steinbeck
When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems. Stephen Covey
The highest form of knowledge is empathy. Bill Bullard
Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn. Alice Miller
When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you. Susan Sarandon
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
It’s the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else’s pain. Pat Barker
Empathy is choosing to see ourselves in another despite our differences. It’s recognizing that the same humanity the same desire for meaning, fulfillment and security exists in each of us, even if it’s expressed uniquely. Vivek Murthy
Peace cannot be kept by force it can only be achieved by understanding. Albert Einstein
In my view, the best of humanity is in our exercise of empathy and compassion. It’s when we challenge ourselves to walk in the shoes of someone whose pain or plight might seem so different than yours that it’s almost incomprehensible. Sarah McBride
Anyone who has experienced a certain amount of loss in their life has empathy for those who have experienced loss. Anderson Cooper
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
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
Despair is despair, sorrow is sorrow, death is death. It’s not about who is experiencing it it’s about building a bridge of empathy across these experiences. Okieriete Onaodowan
When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen. Ernest Hemingway
Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals. Neil Gaiman
The struggle of my life created empathy I could relate to pain, being abandoned, having people not love me. Oprah Winfrey
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
Empathy means both understanding others on their own terms and bringing them within the orbit of one’s own experience. Jacob A. Belzen
For me, being a top coach means more than just teaching football. That includes empathy, it means that you can speak to a group, that you can deal with the media you have to be able to do all of that. I would not describe myself as blind in this regard, but a top coach also includes titles. Julian Nagelsmann
I call him religious who understands the suffering of others. Mahatma Gandhi
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
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
I will not call that person happy who knows no rest because of his enemies, who is the butt of fun by all and for whom no one has any empathy, who is as if held on a leash by others, who has lost himself in hedonistic pursuits, who preys on those weaker to him and wags his tail for his superiors. Munshi Premchand
Empathetic presence involves listening to someone’s pain with what I call the five A’s attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing. David Richo
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
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
Learning a foreign language, and the culture that goes with it, is one of the most useful things we can do to broaden the empathy and imaginative sympathy and cultural outlook of children. Michael Gove
One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone. Shannon L. Alder
I don’t know whether your heart ever necessarily changes, but time changes the way that you perceive the world. And you just hope it gives you more empathy and all those other things. Mark Knopfler
I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization. Roger Ebert
Humans aren’t as good as we should be in our capacity to empathize with feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on Earth. So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy. Neil deGrasse Tyson
The only way to change someone’s mind is to connect with them from the heart. Rasheed Ogunlaru
Virtual reality is the ‘ultimate empathy machine. These experiences are more than documentaries. They’re opportunities to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Chris Milk
Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize? Marcus Aurelius
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
When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems. Stephen Covey
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
The opposite of anger is not calmness, its empathy. Mehmet Oz
I’ve always thought of acting as more of an exercise in empathy, which is not to be confused with sympathy. You’re trying to get inside a certain emotional reality or motivational reality and try to figure out what that’s about so you can represent it. Edward Norton
Whenever you feel like criticizing any one just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had. F. Scott Fitzgerald
Cinematography speaks to everything that women do inherently well It’s multitasking, it’s empathy, and it’s channeling visuals into human emotion. Rachel Morrison
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
The second you think that all your good fortune is a product of your virtue, you become highly judgmental, lacking empathy, totally without self awareness, arrogant, stupid I mean, all the stuff that our ruling class is. Tucker Carlson
Empathy is connection; it’s a ladder out of the shame hole. Brené Brown
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
Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another. Alfred Adler
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
Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping him up. Jesse Jackson
My background is in arts education and we know, absolutely for a fact, that there is no better way for kids to learn critical thinking skills, communication skills, things like empathy and tolerance. This is true across every boundary, across cultural boundaries, across socioeconomic, it’s a great leveler in terms of unifying our world. Emma Walton Hamilton
Empathy requires knowing that you know nothing. Leslie Jamison
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
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
I think with empathy. It’s more looking out at the people. And that includes the Republicans, you know the people that might be opposed to us. Trying to understand why is it that they want what they want. And then how do we find common ground. I mean sometimes there is no common ground to be had if it’s only about profit. Jane O’Meara Sanders
Empathy is like giving someone a psychological hug. Lawrence J
The truth is that we should live with less envy and more cordiality and empathy. Leonardo Bonucci
