Quotes about empathy

"Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, "do you believe in me or not?"

"I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"

"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world — oh, woe is me! — and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"

That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society.

In Lyra’s heart, revulsion struggled with compassion, and compassion won.

I do believe that man is a rope between animal and superman. But the superman I'm thinking of isn't Nietzsche's. The real superhuman, man or woman, is the person who's rid himself of all prejudices, neuroses, and psychoses, who realizes his full potential as a human being, who acts naturally on the basis of gentleness, compassion, and love, who thinks for himself and refuses to follow the herd. That's the genuine dyed-in-the-wool superman.

I should also point out that empathy, sympathy, and love are limitless resources, energies that never deplete, and at this time of dwindling fuels we should cherish and explore these inexhaustible inner resources more than ever

Empathize with stupidity and you’re halfway to thinking like an idiot.

Though sympathy can’t alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable.

This agony of feeling on behalf of someone else was entirely new to him.

You can’t feel everyman’s death.

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.

A novel is not an allegory ... It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing.

This, I believe, is how the villain in modern fiction is born: a creature without compassion, without empathy.