Empathy Quotes - Page 23

• There is a real comfort with the position of the victim, which can either result in true empathy or deep paranoia.

  Jill Soloway

  Real, Comfort, Paranoia

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Regarding fiction, our concern shouldn't be the author's origin (and of course I am forgetting the sales people right here), because that is actually merely a simplified, almost insulting judgment of the book by its cover - or rather by the name and origin of its author - an act of discrimination if we want to say it in a more provoking way, but at the least an act of ignorance and false empathy.

  Sasa Stanisic

  Book, Ignorance, Names

  Source: therumpus.net

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• By “empathy,” some people mean everything that is good - compassion, kindness, warmth, love, being a mensch, changing the world - and I'm for all of those things. I'm not a monster.

  Paul Bloom

  Kindness, Mean, Compassion

  "Paul Bloom: The Trouble With Empathy". Interview with Allyson Kirkpatrick, www.guernicamag.com. February 1, 2016.

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• Because of empathy, we care more for, and devote far more resources to, someone who is familiar, from our country or our group, than a stranger.

  Paul Bloom

  Country, Groups, Care

  "Paul Bloom: The Trouble With Empathy". Interview with Allyson Kirkpatrick, www.guernicamag.com. February 1, 2016.

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• I argue that we should be kind, we should be compassionate, and we should definitely be reasonable and rational, but that empathy leads us astray.

  Paul Bloom

  Be Kind, Arguing, Should

  "Paul Bloom: The Trouble With Empathy". Interview with Allyson Kirkpatrick, www.guernicamag.com. February 1, 2016.

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• When people want to inspire you to turn against some group of people, they'll often use empathy.

  Paul Bloom

  People, Inspire, Want

  "Paul Bloom: The Trouble With Empathy". Interview with Allyson Kirkpatrick, www.guernicamag.com. February 1, 2016.

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• I'm not a pacifist. I think the suffering of innocent people can be a catalyst for moral action. But empathy puts too much weight on the scale in favor of war. Empathy can really lead to violence.

  Paul Bloom

  War, Thinking, People

  "Paul Bloom: The Trouble With Empathy". Interview with Allyson Kirkpatrick, www.guernicamag.com. February 1, 2016.

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• Something as important and central and encompassing as empathy can't be all bad. I think empathy plays a role in intimate relationships, where you might want your partner not just to care about you or understand you but to feel what you feel.

  Paul Bloom

  Thinking, Intimate Relationships, Play

  "Paul Bloom: The Trouble With Empathy". Interview with Allyson Kirkpatrick, www.guernicamag.com. February 1, 2016.

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• I think empathy is really important for pleasure.

  Paul Bloom

  Thinking, Important, Pleasure

  "Paul Bloom: The Trouble With Empathy". Interview with Allyson Kirkpatrick, www.guernicamag.com. February 1, 2016.

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• I draw a lot from Buddhism, which focuses on compassion and kindness, loving kindness, as they call it, but rejects empathy because it's a poor moral guide. And I think there's a lot of evidence suggesting that they're right.

  Paul Bloom

  Kindness, Buddhism, Thinking

  "Paul Bloom: The Trouble With Empathy". Interview with Allyson Kirkpatrick, www.guernicamag.com. February 1, 2016.

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• I hope they're present in their lives and feel some kind of empathy. I think a lot of the mistakes that have been made in the world have been through a lack of empathy. If you can identify with someone else and empathise with someone else, then activism is a short step away, she explained in an interview with Parade.

  Susan Sarandon

  Mistake, Thinking, World

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• Empathy is one of our highest human skills and holds families and societies together. Feeling connected to other people is probably the deepest satisfaction we will ever know. How terrible for children who are being brought up without that capacity.

  Sue Gerhardt

  Children, Skills, People

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• There's a gap somehow between empathy and activism. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of 'soul force' - something that emanates from a deep truth inside of us and empowers us to act. Once you identify your inner genius, you will be able to take action, whether it's writing a check or digging a well.

  Sue Monk Kidd

  Kings, Writing, Empowering

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• Reconciliation is a deep practice that we can do with our listening and our mindful speech. To reconcile means to bring peace and happiness to nations, people, and members of our family.... In order to reconcile, you have to possess the art of deep listening.

  Nhat Hanh

  Art, Mean, Order

  Thich Nhat Hanh (2008). “For a Future to Be Possible: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.56, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Altruism itself depends on a recognition of the reality of other persons, and on the equivalent capacity to regard oneself as merely one individual among many.

  Thomas Nagel

  Reality, Recognition, Individual

  Thomas Nagel (2016). “The Possibility of Altruism”, p.3, Princeton University Press

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• 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

  People

  Walt Whitman, Sculley Bradley, Harold W. Blodgett (2008). “Leaves of Grass: A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, 1855-1856”, p.25, NYU Press

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• The mother condemned for a witch and burnt with dry
  wood, and her children gazing on;
  The hounded slave that flags in the race and leans by the
  fence, blowing and covered with sweat,
  The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck,
  The murderous buckshot and the bullets,
  All these I feel or am.

  Walt Whitman

  Mother, Children, Sweat

  Walt Whitman (2013). “Walt Whitman: Selected Poems 1855-1892”, p.46, St. Martin's Press

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• The ability to infer the specific content of another person's thoughts and feelings.

  William Ickes

  Feelings, Ability, Persons

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• Each side has legitimate aspirations - and that's part of what makes peace so hard. And the deadlock will only be broken when each side learns to stand in the other's shoes; each side can see the world through the other's eyes. That's what we should be encouraging. That's what we should be promoting.

  Barack Obama

  Eye, Shoes, Broken

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• Let us join together across denominations, religions and cultures to make a habit of empathy and reach out to those most in need. To share the blessings we enjoy and to advance the cause of peace in all corners of our world.

  Barack Obama

  Blessing, Our World, Together

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• As you travel through the Middle East what keeps on striking home to me is how similar everyone is, and yet the degree to which we can find differences to fight wars over. It requires a great deal of empathy, I think, between various sides to overcome this history and live in peace.

  Barack Obama

  War, Home, Fighting

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• But it will depend on young people like you being open to new ideas and new possibilities. And it will require young people like you never to stereotype or assume the worst about other people.

  Barack Obama

  Ideas, People, Assuming

  "Obama Holds a Town Hall in Istanbul". Speech in a Town Hall, Istanbul, Turkey, www.washingtonpost.com. April 7, 2009.

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• In the Muslim world, this notion that somehow everything is the fault of the Israelis lacks balance - because there's two sides to every question. That doesn't mean that sometimes one side has done something wrong and should not be condemned. But it does mean there's always two sides to an issue. I say the same thing to my Jewish friends, which is you have to see the perspective of the Palestinians. 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.

  Barack Obama

  Mean, Eye, Two Sides

  "Obama Holds a Town Hall in Istanbul". www.washingtonpost.com. April 7, 2009.

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• It is very important for I think those of us who desperately want peace, who see war as, at some level, a break-down, a manifestation of human weakness, to understand that sometimes it’s also necessary – and you know, to – to be able to balance two ideas at the same time; that we are constantly striving for peace, we are doubling up on our diplomacy, we are going to actively engage, we are going to try to see the world through other people’s eyes and not just our own.

  Barack Obama

  War, Eye, Thinking

  "Obama Talks With PBS’ Jim Lehrer". "NewsHour" with Jim Lehrer, talkingpointsmemo.com. December 23, 2009.

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• That's where peace begins - not just in the plans of leaders, but in the hearts of people. Not just in some carefully designed process, but in the daily connections - that sense of empathy that takes place among those who live together in this land and in this sacred city of Jerusalem.

  Barack Obama

  Heart, Land, Cities

  Remarks of President Barack Obama To the People of Israel, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. March 21, 2013.

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