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Quotations
Empathy
Compassion
Listening
Presence
Imitation - Mirroring
Empathy
"Empathy is
trying on someone else's shoes - Sympathy--wearing them."
Unknown
"The ability to imagine oneself in another's place and
understand the other's feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. The most
obvious example, perhaps, is that of the actor or singer who genuinely
feels the part he is performing." Sam Vaknin
"Empathy depends not only on one's ability to identify
someone else's emotions but also on one's capacity to put oneself in the
other person's place and to experience an appropriate emotional
response" Charles G. Morris
"Empathy is like giving someone a Psychological Hug"
Lawrence J.
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Could
a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's
eye for an instant?
Henry David Thoreau |
Photography is an
investigation of both the outer and the inner worlds. The first
experiences with the camera involve looking at the world beyond the
lens, trusting the instrument will 'capture' something 'seen.' The terms
shoot and take are not accidental; they represent an attitude of
conquest and appropriation. Only when the photographer grows into
perception and creative impulse does the term make define a condition of
empathy between the external and the internal events.
Ansel Adams
I think people
perceive my creatures as absurd because they look different, but at the
same time, they are a little bit familiar. I want people to feel a kind
of empathy with them. When you think about it, all nature is kind of
strange looking.. in fact, I'm a strange a looking creature.
Patricia Piccinini
"As we have no immediate experience
of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they
are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the
like situation."
"the emotions of the spectator will still be very apt to fall short of the
violence of what is felt by the sufferer. Mankind, though naturally
sympathetic, never conceive, for what has befallen another, that degree
of passion which naturally animates the person principally concerned."
Adam Smith's The
Theory of Moral Sentiments (sympathy)
When someone really hears you without passing judgment
on you, without taking responsibility for you, without trying to mold
you, it feels damn good. When I have been listened to, when I have been
heard, I am able to re-perceive my world in a new way and go on. It is
astonishing how elements that seem insoluble become soluble when someone
listens. How confusions that seem irremediable become relatively clear
flowing streams when one is heard. Carl Rogers
"If you can learn a simple trick,
Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never
really understand a person until you consider things from his point of
view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." Atticus
Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
"A human being is a part of a whole,
called by us "universe", a part limited in time and space. He
experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated
from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This
delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal
desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must
be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of
compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in
its beauty." Albert Einstein
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The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our nature, and an
identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action,
or person, not our own.
A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must
put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasure
of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the
imagination. -
Percy Bysshe Shelley |
"I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think
I've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It's the one
characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to
feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy." -
Gustav M. Gilbert, German-speaking American prison psychologist at
Spandau prison in Berlin, where Nazi war crimes defendants were held,
1945
"We will never be able to inhabit the
conscious state of another person. Our subjectivity is an inviolable, unenterable state. On the other hand, there's much in the new neurology
to suggest that empathetic links have also been evolutionarily selected
for. The brain has these amazing circuits, mirror neuron circuits, which
are actively firing and activating motor and visual circuits simply as
simulations of other people's activities. That suggests the brain itself
is manufacturing empathy circuits that allow us to participate in rich
and complicated ways in the sensibilities, actions and motivations of
other people." - Richard Powers
"Only curiosity about the fate of others,
the ability to put ourselves in their shoes, and the will to enter their
world through the magic of imagination, creates this shock of
recognition. Without this empathy there can be no genuine dialogue, and
we as individuals and nations will remain isolated and alien, segregated
and fragmented." (Azar Nafisi)
"If you could actually stand in someone
else's shoes to hear what they hear, see what they see, and feel what
they feel, you would honestly wonder what planet they live on, and be
totally blown away by how different their "reality" is from yours. You'd
also never, in a million years, be quick to judge again." Author unknown
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. Alice Miller
Moral imagination is the capacity to
empathize with others, i.e., not just to feel for oneself, but to feel
with and for others. This is something that education ought to cultivate
and that citizens ought to bring to politics. -McCollough 1992
"Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative
force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we
are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand." Karl Menninger, Prominent Psychiatrist
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Empathy is the most
revolutionary emotion. (Gloria Steinem, Revolution from Within.)
I want us to organize, to tell
the personal stories that create empathy, which is the most
revolutionary emotion. (Gloria
Steinem, Oct 5, 2009 Challenges Facing
Women) |
Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to
make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of
another person..." Fritz William - Ethical Humanist
"Empathy is forgetting oneself in the joys and
sorrows of another, so much so that you actually feel that the joy or
sorrow experienced by another is your own joy and sorrow. Empathy
involves complete identification with another." Dada Vaswani, head of
the Sadhu Vaswani Mission
"Empathy is putting yourself in
another's shoes to find out what exactly that person is feeling or going
through at the given time. It basically refers to being at a common
wavelength with someone." Deepa Kodikal,
"When an individual feels for another's
pain, as a superior towards an inferior, or feels sorry for a condition
one cannot even imagine oneself in - that is the feeling of pity. We
pity a blind person, for we don't know what blindness is. However, when
we rise higher, look at the other as an equal, can probably imagine
ourselves in his condition, and feel a strong bond with him, then that
pity converts itself into sympathy. When, however, we identify so
totally with another that he suffers, and we feel the pain; he laughs,
and joy suffuses our being; he is excited, and our heart leaps in
exhilaration; then we are close to the condition that is called
empathy." Chandrika, author
Atma Siddhi
"Two parts of empathy: Skill (tip of
iceberg) and Attitude (mass of the iceberg)." -
Source Unknown
"Sometimes I'm asked by kids why I condemn marijuana when I haven't
tried it. The greatest obstetricians in the world have never been
pregnant." -
Art Linkletter
Homer |
Yet, taught by time, my heart has
learned to glow for other's good, and melt at other's woe. |
"Are you then unable to recognize
unless it has the same sound as yours?" -
Andre Gide
"When a good man is hurt all who would be called good must suffer with
him." -
Euripides
"We care how things
turn out because the character cares-our interest comes from empathy."
John Gardner
"seeing with the eyes of another,
listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of
another." Alfred Adler
"How far you go in life depends on you being tender
with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the
striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in
life you will have been all of these. " George Washington Carver
"True contentment comes with empathy." Tim Finn
"If the earth does grow inhospitable toward human presence, it is
primarily because we have lost our sense of courtesy toward the earth
and its inhabitants. Thomas Berry
"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen
with the intent to reply. They're either speaking or preparing to speak.
They're filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their
autobiography into other people's lives." Stephen Covey
"If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get
the other person's point of view and see things from his angle as well
as your own. " Henry Ford
"Empathy is the love fire of sweet remembrance and shared understanding."
John Eaton
Answers.com/topic/empathy
Many and extensive definitions. In other languages, sign language, etc.
Trying to observe the slow shift from self-centeredness to empathy is
like trying to watch grass grow. - Neal Maxwell.
Empathy.se Swedish
Empathy Center (great resource on empathy)
"Empathy... is the experience
of foreign consciousness in general"
Edith Stein (1989/1917, p. 11).
Source: Stein, E. (1989). On the problem of empathy.
Washington: ICS Publications. (Original work published 1917)
"Empathy in broadest
sense refers to the reactions of one individual to the observed experiences of
another"
Mark H. Davis:(Davis, 1983, p. 113). Source:
Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for
a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
44, 113-126.
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"The
ability to experience and understand what others feel without
confusion between oneself and others"
Jean Decety: (Decety & Lamm, 2006, p. 1146). Source: Decety, J., & Lamm,
C. (2006). Human empathy through the lens of social neuroscience. The
Scientific World Journal, 6, 1146-1163.
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"Empathy is the capacity
to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person."
Heinz Kohut: (1984, p. 82).
Source: Kohut, H. (1984).
How does analysis cure? Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press. |
"An
affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of
another's emotional state or condition, and that is similar to what the other
person is feeling or would be expected to feel"
Nancy Eisenberg: (2002, p. 135). Source:
Eisenberg, N. (2002). Empathy-related emotional responses,
altruism, and their socialization In R. J. Davidson & A. Harrington (Eds.).
Visions of compassion: Western scientists and Tibetan Buddhists examine human
nature (p. 131-164). London: Oxford University Press.
"An
affective response more appropriate to another's situation than one's own"
Martin Hoffman: (1987, p. 48). Source:
Hoffman, M. L. (1987). The contribution of empathy to
justice and moral judgment. In N. Eisenberg & J. Strayer (Eds.), Empathy
and its development (p. 47-80). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
"Empathy involves the inner
experience of sharing in and comprehending the momentary psychological state
of another person"
(1959, p. 345). Source: Roy Schafer:
Schafer, R. (1959). Generative empathy in the treatment situation. The
Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 28, 342-373.
"The capacity to know
emotionally what another is experiencing from within the frame of reference of
that other person, the capacity to sample the feelings of another or to put
oneself in another's shoes".
D. M. Berger: Source: Berger, D. M. (1987).
Clinical empathy. Northvale: Jason Aronson, Inc.
"It is a way of
perceiving and knowing and a way of being connected to other consciousnesses
by which individual human beings gain access to the inner worlds of other
individuals and to the workings of relationships, and whole ecologies, of
which they are but parts."
M. O´Hara: (1997, p. 303-304). Source:
O'Hara, M. (1997). Relational
empathy: Beyond modernist egocentrism to postmodern holistic contextualism. In
A. C. Bohart & L. S. Greenberg (Eds.), Empathy reconsidered: New directions
in psychotherapy (p. 295-319). Baltimore: United Book Press.
"To empathize means to share,
to experience the feelings of another person."
R. R. Greenson: (1960, p. 418). Source:
Greenson, R. R. (1960). Empathy and its vicissitudes.
International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 41, 418-424
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"The
ability to infer the specific content of another person's thoughts
and feelings"
William Ickes: (1997, s. 3). Source:
Ickes, W. (1997). Empathic accuracy. New
York: Guilford Press. |
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"Other-oriented
feelings congruent with the perceived welfare of another person."
C. D. Batson:
Source: Batson, C. D. (1994).
Why act for the public good? Four answers. Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 603-610, p. 606. |
Freud and the history of
empathy
Empathy (Einfühlung) has a long history in aesthetics, psychology and
psychoanalysis, and plays a greater role in Freud's thinking than readers of the
Standard Edition realise. Coined by Robert Vischer in 1873, Einfühlung
originally designates the projection of human feeling on to the natural world.
For a quarter of a century the term remains at the centre of psychological
aesthetics before Theodor Lipps, a philosopher admired by Freud for 40 years,
transfers it to psychology in an attempt to explain how we discover that other
people have selves. Freud's conception of Einfühlung, first developed in 'Jokes
and their Relation to the Unconscious' (1905), remains heavily intellectual
throughout his career; he views it as the process that allows us to understand
others by putting ourselves in their place. Although the Standard Edition never
translates Einfühlung as 'empathy' in a clinical context, Freud regards it as
essential for establishing the rapport between patient and analyst that makes
interpretation possible. This paper traces the history of Einfühlung from
aesthetics and psychology to Freud and his contemporaries."
Carl Rogers, the humanistic psychologist, defined empathy as follows:
"The state of empathy, or being empathic, is to perceive the internal frame of
reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and
meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person."
From
Compassionate Communication & Empathy0ReadOnline.pdf
John Cunningham, a champion and clarifier of empathy,
writes as follows:
Baruch Urieli defines empathy as "interest in and compassion for our fellow
human being; it enables us to extend our inner being into that of the other
person and directly experience something of his essential nature." Surprisingly,
the word empathy has only recently entered our language. Originally
coined [by Urieli} in 1912 as a translation for the German word Einfühlung-"to
feel into"-
Carl Rogers
introduced the expression into the wider culture in the 1950s when he used
empathy to describe a capacity he saw emerging in the younger generation.
The social aspect of the spiritual life
demands that I open myself
to the other, invite him to express himself in me. In this way I am
able to experience his questions of inner development as my own.
Dieter Brüll, The Mysteries of Social Encounters
"When you listen with empathy to another person,
you give that person psychological air."
Stephen R. Covey (1932 - ____) US "consultant, author" "In ""Webster's
Electronic Quotebase,"" ed. Keith Mohler, 1994."
I hope to leave my children a sense of empathy
and pity and a will to right social wrongs.
Anita Roddick (1942 - 2007) English "businesswoman, social reformer" "In ""The Sunday Express,""
9 Jun 1991."
"Power comes not from the barrel of a gun, but
from one's awareness of his or her own cultural strength and the unlimited
capacity to empathize with, feel for, care, and love one's brothers and
sisters."
\"Addison Gayle, Jr.\" (1932 - ____) US "educator, critic, author" """The Black Aesthetic,"" 1971."
Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as
long as it is nourished with kindness, EMPATHY and understanding. Source
Unknown
Those who give have all things.
Those who withhold have nothing.
Hindu proverb
I'm cursed with empathy. I'm also by nature way too
opinionated.
John Shirley
I think empathy is a beautiful thing. I think that's the power of film though.
We have one of the most powerful, one of the greatest communicative tools known
to man. Michelle Rodriguez
True contentment comes with empathy.
Tim Finn
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When you start to develop your powers of empathy and
imagination, the whole world opens up to you.
Susan
Sarandon
I think I'm an actor because I have very strong
imagination and empathy. I never studied acting, but those two qualities are
exactly the qualities that make for an activist.
Susan
Sarandon
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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.
Alice
Miller
Anyone who has experienced a certain amount of loss in
their life has empathy for those who have experienced loss.
Anderson Cooper
Readers will stay with an author, no matter what the
variations in style and genre, as long as they get that sense of story, of
character, of empathetic involvement.
Dean Koontz
Without television and mass communication, that knowledge
wouldn't exist. So I think it actually has the possibility of turning people
into more understanding and more empathetic people.
John Warnock
When a mother quarrels with a daughter, she has a double
dose of unhappiness hers from the conflict, and empathy with her daughter's from
the conflict with her. Throughout her life a mother retains this special need to
maintain a good relationship with her daughter.
Terri Apter
Poets have to be sensitive to their audience, but it does not mean that they
censor themselves. I realize my audience is diverse. Some will read with empathy
and curiosity while others will take offense. John Barton
The discoveries of how we can grow and the insights we need to have really come
from the inside out. To have genuine empathy, not as a make-nice tool but as an
understanding, is essential to the next step. Patricia Sun
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The great gift of human beings is that we have the power
of empathy.
Meryl Streep |
There is also a natural and very, very strong empathy with
the underdog, with people who have suffered, people who have been pushed around
by foreigners in particular, but also by their own people.
Lakhdar Brahimi
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
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If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't
have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if
you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how
smart you are, you are not going to get very far.
Daniel Goleman
"Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone
compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our
problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others,
our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the
mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for
connection-or compassionate action."
Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
"Empathetic people are
superb at recognizing and meeting the needs of clients, customers,
or subordinates. They seem approachable, wanting to hear what people
have to say. They listen carefully, picking up on what people are
truly concerned about, and respond on the mark," Primal
Leadership. The
act of compassion begins with full attention, just as rapport does.
You have to really see the person. If you see the person, then
naturally, empathy arises. If you tune into the other person, you
feel with them. If empathy arises, and if that person is in dire
need, then empathic concern can come. You want to help them, and
then that begins a compassionate act. So I'd say that compassion
begins with attention. Daniel Goleman |
People who work on the user interface side need to have
empathy as a key characteristic. But if you are writing device drivers you don't
really need to understand humans so well.
Andy Hertzfeld
I'm less interested in slasher, and go more for roles that can affect you on a
personal level. I'm interested in human empathy in the movies I see, and in the
ones I am a part of. Joshua Leonard
Artlex.com
Sympathy for another's situation, feelings, and motives. An imaginative
projection of one's own feelings to an object or event.
Quotations about empathy:
"He who wishes to paint Christ's story must live with Christ."
Fra Angelico (-1455), Florentine
painter of the early Renaissance. Argan, Fra Angelico and His Times, 1955.
"As an artist I am . . . attracted by decadence, by those who exhaust their
lives in the shallow pursuits of pleasure . . . . Occasionally, I feel that
spiritually I participate in all these kinds of lives." Emil Nolde (1867-1956), German
Expressionist painter. Years of Struggle, 1934.
"Daumier paints with an enormous capacity for absolute empathy; a
complete identification of himself with the figures he paints. He sets forth
what it feels like to do something; not what somebody looks like doing it." David Sylvester, The New Statesman,
1963.
"We've reached a point where we are not a very empathetic people, and art
without empathy is art without an audience. My basic viewpoint is that without
art we're alone."
Jamake Highwater, interviewed in Art
News Magazine, August 1984.
"Empathy...is the experience of foreign consciousness in general" Edith Stein, 1917/1989, p.11
"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, 1970/1978, p. 3
The social aspect of the spiritual life demands that I open myself to the
other
person, invite him to express himself in me. In this way I am able to experience
his questions of inner development as my own.
Dieter Brüll, The Mysteries of Social Encounters
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When man faces man the one attempts to put the other to sleep and the other
continuously wants to maintain his uprightness. But this is, to speak in the
Goethean sense, the archetypal phenomenon of social science... [This
sleeping-into] we may call the social principle, the social impulse of the new
era: we have to live over into the other; we have to dissolve with our soul into
the other. Rudolf Steiner (lecture on 11.10.1919) |
Empathy is the only human superpower-it can shrink distance, cut through
social and power hierarchies, transcend differences, and provoke political and
social change. Elizabeth Thomas
The success of the abolitionist movement lay in its making real for people in
Britain and America the slave ship's pervasive and utterly instrumental terror,
which was indeed its defining feature. Marcus Rediker
The official directives needn't be explicit to be well understood: Do not let
too much empathy move in unauthorized directions. Norman Solomon
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Tragically, one of the rarest commodities in our culture is empathy.
People are hungry for empathy, They don't know how to ask for it. Marshall
B. Rosenberg, |
"During empathy one is simply 'there for' the other individual, when
experiencing their own feelings while listening to the other, i.e.
during sympathy, the listener pays attention to something about
themselves, and is not 'there for' the client." "Consider how you would
feel if you sensed that the individual listening to you was getting into
their own 'stuff' rather than hearing and reflecting exactly what you
were feeling in a moment of need?" (Caruso)
"In empathy one substitutes oneself for the other person; in sympathy
one substitutes others for oneself. The object of empathy is
understanding. The object of sympathy is the other person's well-being.
In sum, empathy is a way of knowing; sympathy is a way of relating." (Wispe)
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"Empathy as a complex emotion is different. It requires awareness of the
other person's feelings and of one's own reactions. The appropriate
reaction may not be to cry when another person cries, but to reassure
them, or even to leave them alone." (Preston, de Waal)
"As in a
Russian doll, however, the outer layers always contain an inner core.
Instead of evolution having replaced simpler forms of empathy with more
advanced ones, the latter are merely elaborations on the former and
remain dependent on them. This also means that empathy comes naturally
to us. It is not something we only learn later in life, or that is
culturally constructed." (de Wall, from Peacecenter) |
"Arabic employs a system of root words, where several hundred words can
be related back to the root meaning. Sympathy in Arabic comes from the
root word ???. It has many meanings but the most common are to bend, to
incline, be favorably disposed to, have or feel compassion, awaken
affection towards, or close to ones heart. Empathy can be traced back to
three root words. The first is ???, demonstrating again that one cannot
feel empathy without feeling sympathy also. The second is ???, meaning
attach closely, embrace, hug, or associate closely. The third root is
???, meaning to put on a shirt, clothe, wrap in, pass into another body
(spirit), or materialize in another body. The third meaning is closest
to that of understanding. This implies that a person cannot fully
experience another person or object unless they can place themselves
into the other person or object and fully understand what it is like to
be that person or object."
(Zebuhr)
"If empathy can
be conceived as a process that permits a temporary "jumping" out of self
to affectively identify with non-self benignly, then compassion may be
the emotion that resonates self with non-self to retain the expansions
of external horizons."
(Borysenko)
"Evolution has produced the requisites for morality: a tendency to
develop social norms and enforce them, the capacities of empathy and
sympathy, mutual aid and a sense of fairness, the mechanisms of conflict
resolution, and so on. Evolution has also produced the unalterable needs
and desires of our species: the need of the young for care, a desire for
high status, the need to belong to a group, and so forth." (Arnhart)
Throughout the world, teachers, sociologists, policymakers and parents
are discovering that empathy may be the single most important quality
that must be nurtured to give peace a fighting chance. Arundhati Ray
The official directives needn't be explicit to be well understood: Do
not let too much empathy move in unauthorized directions. Norman Solomon
You need to indoctrinate empathy out of people in order
to arrive at extreme capitalist positions. F. B. M. de Waal
Empathy is the only human superpower-it can shrink distance, cut through
social and power hierarchies, transcend differences, and provoke
political and social change. Elizabeth Thomas
People in Third World countries think and laugh and smile, just like us.
We have got to understand that we are them; they are us. Rachel Corrie
(as a 10-year-old)
Empathy is the only human superpower-it can shrink
distance, cut through social and power hierarchies, transcend
differences, and provoke political and social change. Elizabeth Thomas
The way we are educated and
entertained keep us from knowing about or understanding the pain of
others . Robert Jensen
-------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------- Compassion
Lvinglifefully.com/compassion.htm
List of quotes
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a
beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice
that produces beggars needs restructuring. Martin Luther King
Compassion and nonviolence help us to see the
enemy's point of view, to hear their questions, to know their assessment of
ourselves. For from their point of view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses
of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit
from the wisdom of the brothers and sisters who are called the opposition.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I believe that at every level of society the key to a happier world is the
growth of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to
believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our
good human qualities." Dalai Lama
"Compassion is not just being sentimental and feeling with someone, but seeking
to change the situation. If you are going to be compassionate, be prepared for
action!" Archbishop Desmond Tutu
"Compassion begins at home, and it is not how much we do but how much love we
put in that action. Do not think that love has to be extraordinary. What we need
is to love without getting tired." Mother Teresa
"Each of us has response-ability for our unique piece of Creation, but only from
the deeper wisdom and compassion of our Greater Self can we truly care for the
world entrusted to us."
Rabbi Theodore Falcon
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"The whole idea of
compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of
all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all
involved in one another."
Thomas Merton |
"Compassion is not sentiment but is making justice and doing works of mercy.
Compassion is not a moral commandment but a flow and overflow of the fullest
human and divine energies."
Matthew Fox
"Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil
proceeding within us." Eric Hoffer
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"A human being is
part of the whole called by us ‘universe' - a part limited in time
and space. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by
widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures
and the whole of nature in its beauty."
Albert Einstein |
"How far you go in life depends on your being compassionate with the young, the
aged, the striving and the weak. Because, someday in your life, you will have
been all of these things."
George Washington Carver
"Compassion is the capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody
else's skin...the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for
me until there is peace and joy for you." Frederick Beuchner
"Each of us has response-ability for our unique
piece of Creation, but only from the deeper wisdom and compassion of our Greater
Self can we truly care for the world that is entrusted to us." Rabbi Theodore
Falcon
Listening
Effective listeners remember that "words have no
meaning - people have meaning." The assignment of meaning to a term is
an internal process; meaning comes from inside us. And although our
experiences, knowledge and attitudes differ, we often misinterpret each
other's messages while under the illusion that a common understanding
has been achieved. Larry Barker
Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends
who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to,
it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Karl A. Menninger
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. Alice Miller
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it
takes to sit down and listen. Winston Churchill
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what
I thought, and attended to my answer. Henry David Thoreau
When someone really hears you without passing judgment on you, without
trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it
feels damn good. . . . When I have been listened to and when I have been
heard, I am able to re-perceive my world in a new way and to go on. It
is astonishing how elements which seem insoluble become soluble when
someone listens. How confusions which seem irremediable turn into
relatively clear flowing streams when one is heard. Carl Rogers
"Empathy is like giving someone a Psychological Hug" Lawrence J.
"Empathy is trying on someone else's shoes
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Sympathy-wearing them" Unknown
If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you`ll get
along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand
a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until
you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it. - Atticus Finch
-To Kill A Mockingbird
If there is any one
secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's
point of view and see things from his angle as well as your own. Henry
Ford
Man who know little say much.
Man who know much say little.
Unknown
The first duty of love is to listen. Paul Tillich
Much silence makes a powerful noise. African proverb
A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he
gets to know something. Wilson Mizner
It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and another to hear.
Thoreau
I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm
not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. Robert
McCloskey
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So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you
are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is
being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it. Jiddu Krishnamurti
"If we try to listen we find it extraordinarily difficult, because
we are always projecting our opinions and ideas, our prejudices, our
background, our inclinations, our impulses; when they dominate, we
hardly listen at all to what is being said…One listens and therefore
learns, only in a state of silence, in which this whole background
is in abeyance, is quite; then, it seems to me, it is possible to
communicate." Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian Philosopher |
The goal of fasting is inner unity.
This means hearing, but not with the ear;
hearing, but not with the understanding;
hearing with the spirit, with your whole being...
The hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty, to the ear,
or to the mind. Hence, it demands the emptiness of all the faculties.
And when the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens.
There is then a direct grasp of what is right there before you
that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind.
Fasting of the heart empties the faculties, frees you from limitation
and from preoccupation. Fasting of the heart begets unity and freedom.
Confucius:
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when a person realizes he has been deeply
heard, his eyes moisten. I think in some real sense he is weeping for
joy. It is as though he were saying, "Thank God, somebody heard me.
Someone knows what it's like to be me." Carl Rogers
"To perceive the internal frame
of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and
meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person, but without ever
losing the "as if" condition. Thus, it means to sense the hurt or the pleasure
of another as he senses it and to perceive the causes thereof as he perceives
them, but without ever losing the recognition that it is as if I were hurt or
pleased and so forth."
Carl Rogers: (1959, p. 210-211)"
Source: Rogers, C. R. (1959). A theory of therapy,
personality and interpersonal relationships, as developed in the client-centered
framework. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A study of science, (Vol. 3,
p. 184-256). New York: Mc Graw Hill.
Later (1975), Rogers wrote that empathy is a
process rather than a state and that it means "entering the
private perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it.
It involves being sensitive, moment to moment, to the changing felt meanings
which flow in this other person, to the fear or rage or tenderness or
confusion or what ever, that he/she is experiencing. It means temporarily
living in his/her life, moving about in it delicately without making
judgments, sensing meanings of which he/she is scarcely aware, but not trying
to uncover feelings of which the person is totally unaware, since this would
be too threatening. It includes communicating your sensing of his/her world as
you look with fresh and unfrightened eyes at elements of which the individual
is fearful. It means frequently checking with him/her as to the accuracy of
your sensings, and being guided by the responses you receive. You are a
confident companion to the person in his/her inner world. By pointing to the
possible meanings in the flow of his/her experiencing you help the person to
focus on this useful type of referent, to experience the meanings more fully,
and to move forward in the experiencing. To be with another in this way means
that for the time being you lay aside the views and values you hold for
yourself in order to enter another's world without prejudice. In some sense it
means that you lay aside yourself and this can only be done by a person who is
secure enough in himself that he knows he will not get lost in what may turn
out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other, and can comfortably
return to his own world when he wishes. Perhaps this description makes clear
that being empathic is a complex, demanding, strong yet subtle way of being."
(p. 4). Source: Rogers, C. (1975). Empathic: An
unappreciated way of being. Counseling Psychologist, 5, 2-10. |
I believe I know why it is satisfying to
me to hear someone. When I can really hear someone, it puts me in touch
with him; it enriches my life. It is through hearing people that I have
learned all that I know about individuals, about personality, about
interpersonal relationships.
Carl Rogers
Presence
The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on
the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that
are available now. Thich Nhat Hanh
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
Simone Weil
Imitation - Mirroring
When I wish to find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good,
or how wicked is any one, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the
expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the
expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my
mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression. edgar
allan poe
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