Empathy is the ability to understand what another person is experiencing—to see the world through their eyes and feel what they feel. These empathy quotes offer wisdom from philosophers, leaders, and teachers who understood that connection begins with understanding.
What Is Empathy?
Empathy means recognizing and understanding another person’s feelings and perspective. It’s different from sympathy, which is feeling sorry for someone. Empathy requires stepping into their experience, even temporarily.
Compassion takes empathy one step further—it’s empathy that moves you to act. You can feel empathy for someone’s struggle and then show compassion by helping them.
Why does empathy matter? Because relationships—whether with friends, family, coworkers, or strangers—rely on mutual understanding. When you approach others with empathy, conflicts soften, communication improves, and connection deepens.
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How to Use Empathy Quotes
Morning Reflection and Intention Setting
Start your day by reading a quote that resonates. Spend a minute thinking about how you want to show up for others. This simple practice can shift your mindset before you even leave the house.
Daily Reminders
Choose one quote and keep it visible. Write it on a sticky note. Set it as your phone background. Return to it when interactions feel tense or when you need to pause before reacting.
Conversation Starters
Share a quote with someone you care about. It can open discussions that might otherwise feel awkward to start. Sometimes a quote says what you’re struggling to express.
Journal Prompts
Write your favorite quote at the top of a journal page. Then explore what it means to you. How have you experienced this? Where could you apply it? Journaling turns quotes from words on a screen into personal insight.
Teaching and Learning
Teachers and parents can use these quotes to spark discussions with young people. Pair a quote with questions: What does this mean to you? Can you think of a time when someone showed you empathy?
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Empathy Quotes by Theme
Understanding Others
“Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.” – Alfred Adler
“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.” – Harper Lee
“You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.” – John Steinbeck
“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.” – Sterling K. Brown
“Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?” – Marcus Aurelius
“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” – Henry David Thoreau
“Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.” – Mohsin Hamid
“To perceive is to suffer.” – Aristotle
“Are you proud of yourself tonight that you have insulted a total stranger whose circumstances you know nothing about?” – Harper Lee
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” – Mother Teresa
Listening and Presence
“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.” – Henri Nouwen
“Sometimes all a person wants is an empathetic ear; all he or she needs is to talk it out. Just offering a listening ear and an understanding heart for his or her suffering can be a big comfort.” – Roy T. Bennett
“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway
“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
“When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.” – Dalai Lama
“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” – Epictetus
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” – Simone Weil
“Empathy lies in our ability to be present without opinion.” – Marshall B. Rosenberg
“A prerequisite to empathy is simply paying attention to the person in pain.” – Daniel Goleman
Compassion and Kindness
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals.” – Pema Chödrön
“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” – Leo Buscaglia
“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” – Mark Twain
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” – Plato
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” – Dalai Lama
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” – Dalai Lama
“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.” – Dalai Lama
“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.” – Kahlil Gibran
Self-Empathy and Self-Compassion
“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” – Jack Kornfield
“Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.” – Pema Chödrön
“Self-empathy in [Non-Violent Communication] means checking in with your own feelings and needs.” – Marshall B. Rosenberg
“With empathy, I’m fully with them, and not full of them—that’s sympathy.” – Marshall B. Rosenberg
“I judge others less when I judge myself less.” – Unknown
“It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul.” – Desmond Tutu
“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity.” – Brené Brown
“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 in Relationships
“All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.” – Tahereh Mafi
“When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.” – Stephen Covey
“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” – Brené Brown
“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” – Stephen R. Covey
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
“It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.” – John Joseph Powell
“To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” – David Viscott
“The only time you look in your neighbor’s bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don’t look in your neighbor’s bowl to see if you have as much as them.” – Louis C.K.
“Love is not without its flaws. The stronger the love, the more it tests you. Compassion and empathy will make true love persist.” – Khalil Gibran
Empathy for Children and Students
“If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.” – Dolly Parton
“Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping him up.” – Jesse Jackson
“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.” – Albert Schweitzer
“No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” – Albert Einstein
“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant with the weak and wrong. Sometime in your life, you will have been all of these.” – Gautama Buddha
“It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.” – Unknown
“When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.” – Susan Sarandon
Leadership and Workplace Empathy
“I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.” – Maya Angelou
“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.” – Meryl Streep
“Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.” – Barack Obama
“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 represents the foundation skill for all the social competencies important for work.” – Daniel Goleman
“Leadership is about empathy.” – Oprah Winfrey
“Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy.” – Dean Koontz
“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.” – Daniel Goleman
“Empathy is about standing in someone else’s shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place.” – Daniel H. Pink
“Empathy is the ability to step outside of your own bubble and to understand the realities of someone else’s life. It’s the cornerstone of human connection.” – Oprah Winfrey
Additional Empathy Quotes
“Empathy is simply listening, holding space, withholding judgement, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of ‘You’re not alone.'” – Brené Brown
“The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?” – Jack Kornfield
“Empathy is a choice, and it’s a vulnerable one.” – Brené Brown
“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.” – Barbara Kingsolver
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.” – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” – Pema Chödrön
“Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion and the beginning of morality.” – Ian McEwan
“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” – Audre Lorde
“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.” – Peter Drucker
“Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It’s the impetus for creating change.” – Max Carver
Ways to Practice Empathy
Reading quotes is one thing. Actually practicing empathy is another. Here’s how to move from words to action:
Listen without planning your response. Most of us listen just long enough to know what we want to say next. Try listening to understand instead of listening to reply.
Ask how someone is feeling when you notice something seems off. Don’t assume. Don’t fix. Just ask.
Learn about people from different backgrounds. Empathy grows when you’re exposed to experiences unlike your own. Read books, watch documentaries, have conversations with people whose lives look different from yours.
Show concern through actions, not just words. Empathy isn’t just feeling—it’s responding. Sometimes that’s a text checking in. Sometimes it’s showing up.
Pay attention to nonverbal cues. Body language, tone, and facial expressions often reveal more than words do.
Get to know someone before forming opinions. Judgment shuts down empathy. Curiosity opens it up.
Consider multiple perspectives on any situation. There’s rarely just one way to see things. Ask yourself what might be true from another angle.
Validate feelings even when you disagree. You don’t have to agree with someone to acknowledge that their feelings are real to them.
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When Empathy Requires Boundaries
Empathy doesn’t mean accepting harmful behavior or staying in situations that damage you. You can understand why someone acts a certain way without tolerating the impact on your well-being.
Sometimes the most empathetic thing you can do—for yourself and others—is to set clear boundaries. This isn’t a failure of empathy. It’s recognizing that self-compassion matters too.
If you’re in a relationship where you’re experiencing abuse or consistent harm, empathy for the other person shouldn’t override your safety. Seek professional support. Leave if you need to.
Balance is key. You can be open-hearted without being defenseless.
Conclusion
Empathy transforms how we relate to each other. These quotes remind us that understanding matters, that listening heals, and that compassion begins with seeing another person clearly. Use them as prompts, reminders, and invitations to connect more deeply.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between empathy, sympathy, and compassion?
Empathy is understanding and feeling what someone else experiences. Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone from a distance. Compassion is empathy that motivates you to help.
How do I choose the right empathy quote for my situation?
Match the quote to your need. For conflicts, choose quotes about understanding perspectives. For grief, choose quotes about presence. For self-criticism, choose quotes about self-compassion.
Can empathy be learned or is it innate?
Both. Some people naturally feel others’ emotions more strongly, but everyone can develop empathy through practice, exposure to different perspectives, and intentional listening.
How do I teach empathy to children?
Model it first. Children learn by watching adults. Then use stories, role-playing, and discussions about feelings. Ask questions like “How do you think they felt?” instead of lecturing.
What if I struggle to feel empathy?
Start small. You don’t have to feel deeply for everyone. Begin with people close to you. Practice listening. Notice when you judge quickly. Empathy is a skill that develops over time.