#empathy

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. ↗

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

#friends #friendship #inspirational #friendship

I always think that if you look at anyone in detail, you will have empathy for them because you recognize them as a human being, no matter what they've done. ↗

— Andrea Arnold

#anyone #because #being #detail #done

There are many respects in which America, if it can bring itself to act with the magnanimity and the empathy appropriate to its size and power, can be an intelligent example to the world. ↗

— J. William Fulbright

#america #appropriate #bring #empathy #example

Good politics starts with empathy, proceeds to analysis, then sets out values and establishes the vision, before getting to the nitty-gritty of policy solutions. ↗

— David Miliband

#before #empathy #establishes #getting #good

While eschewing emotion - and its companion, vulnerability - Obama should be careful not to sacrifice empathy, the 'I feel your pain' connection that sustained Clinton. This connection is the shorthand people use to measure their leaders' intentions. If people believe you're on their side, they will trust your decisions. ↗

— Dee Dee Myers

#believe #careful #clinton #companion #connection

Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are. And this is why love, as I understand it, is always specific. Trying to love all of humanity may be a worthy endeavor, but, in a funny way, it keeps the focus on the self, on the self’s own moral or spiritual well-being. Whereas, to love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self. ↗

— Jonathan Franzen

#humanity #love #funny

Fiction and essays can create empathy for the theoretical stranger. ↗

— Barbara Kingsolver

#empathy #essays #fiction #stranger #theoretical

"Empathy" is the latest code word for liberal activism, for treating the Constitution as malleable clay to be kneaded and molded in whatever form justices want. It represents an expansive view of the judiciary in which courts create policy that couldn't pass the legislative branch or, if it did, would generate voter backlash. ↗

— Karl Rove

#backlash #branch #clay #code #constitution

What Mr. Obama wants in a nominee isn't really "empathy" and "understanding." He wants a liberal, activist Supreme Court justice. ↗

— Karl Rove

#court #empathy #justice #liberal #mr

A little anger is a good thing if it isn't on your own behalf, if it's for others deserving of your anger, your empathy. ↗

— David Simon

#anger #behalf #deserving #empathy #good