#empathy

• People deserve a break. The stressed and unorganized person who doesn’t have the same priorities as you may be dealing with an autistic child, abusive spouse, fading parents, or cancer. Don’t judge people until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. Give them a break instead. ↗

— Guy Kawasaki

#art

When my sister was released from the mental hospital, she came to live with me in the tilting and crumbling one-bedroom house I'd bought with the small amount of money I inherited when our parents died. She arrived one afternoon unannounced in a taxi. She must have known instinctively that I'd take her in. I don't know how or why they released her. Probably due to overcrowding, and they had her scratch her name on a form then pushed her out the door. Or maybe she just slipped away when no one was looking (who'd notice in a place like that?)--she never did tell me and I didn't ask her. I was so happy to have her with me again that the last thing I wanted to do was break the spell by letting reality intrude. Ever since they'd dragged her away weeping with laughter and reaching out for me with our parents' blood still coating her hands with shiny red gloves, I'd felt amputated, like they'd pulled her kicking and screaming and insane out of my guts. ↗

— Michael Gira

#money

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive. ↗

— James Baldwin

#empathy #pain #reading #people

I learn from my own daughter that you don’t have to be awake to cry. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#empathy #pity #sisters

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

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

#empathy #sadness #sympathy #comfort

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

#empathy #kindness #suffering #understanding-others #suffering

Close both eyes see with the other one. Then we are no longer saddled by the burden of our persistent judgments our ceaseless withholding our constant exclusion. Our sphere has widened and we find ourselves quite unexpectedly in a new expansive location in a place of endless acceptance and infinite love. ↗

— Gregory Boyle

#compassion #empathy #unconditional-love #love

When good people consider you the bad guy, you develop a heart to help the bad ones. You actually understand them. ↗

— Criss Jami

#bad-people #compassion #compassionate #comprehend #comprehending

The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy, we can all sense a mysterious connection to each other. ↗

— Meryl Streep

#humanity #connection

It’s like when you’re excited about a girl and you see a couple holding hands, and you feel so happy for them. And other times you see the same couple, and they make you so mad. And all you want is to feel happy for them because you know that if you do, then it means you’re happy, too. ↗

— Stephen Chbosky

#yearning #madness