Children, even infants, are capable of sympathy. But only after adolescence are we capable of compassion.

Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.

It requires more strength to be gentle, so it's the everyday encounters of life that I think we've prepared children for and prepared them to be good to other people and to consider other people.

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.

Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It's the impetus for creating change.

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.

A certain amount of anger doesn't make us less empathetic, less humane, less loving. It just makes us real.

What we need in medical schools is not to teach empathy, as much as to preserve it - the process of learning huge volumes of information about disease, of learning a specialized language, can ironically make one lose sight of the patient one came to serve; empathy can be replaced by cynicism.

People tend to become more emotionally intelligent as they age and mature.

When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.

Deliberately seek opportunities for kindness, sympathy, and patience.

When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.

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.

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.

No human heart is denied empathy. No religion can demolish that by indoctrination. No culture, no nation and nationalism - nothing can touch it because it is empathy.

I experience psychic phenomena, so people think I must be crazy. But you have to be accessible and intelligent to be a good actor. I might not have gotten the best grades in school, but I have a very high level of emotional intelligence. You have to be open to receive.

Positive culture comes from being mindful, and respecting your coworkers, and being empathetic.

The humanitarian lays stress almost solely upon breadth of knowledge and sympathy.

Motherhood is at its best when the tender chords of sympathy have been touched.

Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering.

Neapolitans are extremely empathetic, whereas the typical northern attitude is more about not showing or sharing your feelings.

My strength is that I'm an empath.

Human relations are built on feeling, not on reason or knowledge. And feeling is not an exact science; like all spiritual qualities, it has the vagueness of greatness about it.

The more you know yourself, the more patience you have for what you see in others.

Traits like humility, courage, and empathy are easily overlooked - but it's immensely important to find them in your closest relationships.

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.

I was raised in an atmosphere of 'everything's fine.' But as I got older, I was like, 'Well no, everything's not fine. There is stuff that's sad.' I am a really sensitive person. I think I am too sensitive sometimes.

I realized a while back that I have an innate ability to be compassionate, and I saw that the strength of compassion is something that healers have and healers use.'

Compassion has enemies, and those enemies are things like pity, moral outrage, fear.

Ultimately, knowing God and reading the Word, it helps with patience with people, understanding, empathy and sympathy that they might not have that I have. If God gave it to me, why not exercise it?

I am a pretty emotional person. Any act of kindness or unkindness moves me. When I see a romantic couple sitting by the beach, it moves me. I don't break down or crack under pressure, but I am just sensitive.

Sympathy relies on a common experience. If you're clumsy, you might have sympathy for others who tend to bump into things. Empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to understand another person's feelings even if you've never experienced them yourself.

Positive social emotions like compassion and empathy are generally good for us, and we want to encourage them. But do we know how to most reliably raise children to care about the suffering of other people? I'm not sure we do.

We can learn the art of fierce compassion - redefining strength, deconstructing isolation and renewing a sense of community, practicing letting go of rigid us-vs.-them thinking - while cultivating power and clarity in response to difficult situations.

Human nature is complex. Even if we do have inclinations toward violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to cooperation, to self-control.

Studying design has made me a much, much more astute observer of this aspect of business. And I'm working mightily to improve my empathic skills. I've dramatically improved my ability to read facial expressions - and I'm trying to be a better, more attentive listener.

The opposite of anger is not calmness, its empathy.

More compassionate mind, more sense of concern for other's well-being, is source of happiness.

I have more awareness of other people and, I hope, more sensitivity to their needs. I also find that I'm more direct and outspoken.

Movies that encourage empathy are more effective than those that objectify problems.

Someone who has experienced trauma also has gifts to offer all of us - in their depth, their knowledge of our universal vulnerability, and their experience of the power of compassion.

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.'