Empathy Quotes - The 72 Best Sayings About Compassion and Empathy

Are you looking for inspirational empathy quotes and sayings about compassion? Then you've come to the right place! Before we judge, we must first learn to put ourselves in other people's shoes. In people who are in difficult situations. In our planet, which we are exploiting. Or in the emotional world of animals that have to suffer for our pleasure - whether we eat them, train them or tear their skins off their bodies for clothing production.

If we want to make a difference in the world, we need to be empathetic. With this collection of inspiring empathy quotes, I want to encourage our empathy.

My please: Keep in mind that many of the empathy quotes have been translated. I cannot guarantee that it is the original quote in each case. Therefore, double check them and feel free to leave a corrective comment. If you like and share any of the quotes in the internet, please link this elaborately created collection. Thank you for your support!

The best sayings about compassion and empathy

It is not helpful to see everything in black and white. Sensitivity, empathy, intuition, tact, understanding, acceptance and heart are appropriate and human. The following quotes about empathy will help you to exemplify these human values more easily.

Empathy quotes 1 - 10

1. "The great gift of man is the capacity for empathy." (Meryl Streep)
2. "Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another." (Proverb)
3. "Mockery ends where understanding begins." (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach)
4. "Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind." (Albert Schweitzer)
5. "Empathetic men are clairvoyant, clairaudient and clairsentient." (Ernst Ferstl)
6. "Politicians shine through empathy - reliving all of their nation's successes as if they were their own." (Pavel Kosorin)
7. "Where compassion creeps in, it's only one step to love." (Julius Grosse)
8. "Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said." (Voltaire)
9. "If we can make a person happier and more cheerful, we should certainly do it, whether he asks us to or not." (Hermann Hesse)
10. "Pity is an emotion easy to scorn but central to our humanity." (Friedrich Hebbel)

Tip: I also gave you another Collection of quotes about humanity compiled. Feel free to drop by there as well.

Empathy Quotes 11 - 20

11. "Finding people who feel and empathize for us is probably the most beautiful happiness on earth." (Carl Spitteler)
12. "Being empathetic means seeing the world through the eyes of others, not our world in their eyes." (Carl R. Rogers)
13. "There is no freedom without intelligence or without mutual understanding." (Albert Camus)
14. "To have and not to give is often worse than to steal." (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach)
15. "Let your heart feel the misery and suffering of all." (George Washington)
16. "Compassion does not mean that I imagine how I would feel instead of the other person or how he feels. Compassion means that I feel what he feels. Very directly. Inside myself, in my heart." (Safi Nidiaye)
17. "The misfortune of thousands moves us less - than the misfortune of one." (Otto Weiß)
18. "In compassion, every love receives a new heart." (Arthur Bernède)
19. "Compassion is never wasted unless you feel sorry for yourself." (Henry Dunant)
20. "World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just mere absence of violence. Peace is, I think, the manifestation of human compassion." (Dalai Lama)

Empathy Quotes 21 - 30

21. "Participation is the golden key that opens the hearts of others." (Samuel Smiles)
22. "Actually, you shouldn't feel sorry for a person at all, it's better to help them." (Maksim Gorky)
23. "There is no animal more cruel than a human being without compassion." (August von Kotzebue)
24. "How happy some would live if they cared as little about other people's things as they do about their own." (Georg Christoph Lichtenberg)
25. "More understanding than lucky people are unlucky people." (Paul Mommertz)
26. "Tact consists of knowing how far you can go too far." (Jean Cocteau)
27. "It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
28. "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."(Mahatma Gandhi)
29. "It's not about getting the feelings out of your head or hiding them in there, it's about living through them with acceptance." (Carl R. Rogers)
30. "«You can't be of help to everybody!» say the narrow-minded, and help nobody." (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach)

Empathy Quotes 31 - 40

31. "Who was in distress and misery himself, knows to recognize the misery and distress of his neighbor." (Sebastian Kneipp)
32. "The worst fault of human beings is their lack of empathy. That is why it is so seldom that anyone is able to form a correct concept of his neighbor's suffering." (Joseph Addison)
33. "Animal protection is education to humanity." (Albert Schweitzer)
34. "Intelligence is the ability to accept one's surroundings." (William Faulkner)
35. "Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man." (Arthur Schopenhauer)
36. "Understanding often reaches much further than the mind." (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach)
37. "All the happiness in the world comes from the desire that others may be happy." (Buddha)
38. "We don't hold ourselves accountable enough for how much disappointment we cause others." (Heinrich Böll)
39. "Under the tears of compassion grows that action which changes the world." (Jim Wallis)
40. "The human quality I would most like to strengthen is empathy. It unites us in a peaceful, loving state." (Stephen Hawking)

Tip: In addition to these empathy quotes, you are also welcome to read my Collection of sayings with animal welfare quotes view

Empathy Quotes 41 - 50

41. "When two take up arms against each other, he who feels the suffering wins." (Lao Tzu)
42. "The feeling can be much more subtle than the mind can be perceptive." (Viktor Frankl)
43. "Empathy is a gift that eludes those who know only themselves." (Peter Amendt)
44. "Woe to humanity, should only a single animal have a seat in the Last Judgement." (Christian Morgenstern)
45. "Life is a comedy for the thinker and a tragedy for those who feel." (Hippocrates)
46. "Don't criticize what you can't understand." (Bob Dylan)
47. "Compassion is the true foundation of character." (Anatole France)
48. "If you feel compassion, you don't ask other people if you should feel it first." (Georg Christoph Lichtenberg)
49. "You have to take people as they are because there are no others." (Konrad Adenauer)
50. "I have more pity on him who rejoices in lusts and disgraces than on him who seems to endure hardships." (Saint Augustine)

Empathy quotes 51 - 60

51. "From your own pain learn compassion, for thus you acquire the compassion of others." (Menander)
52. "Compassion is wise foresight of the misfortune that may befall us." (François de La Rochefoucauld)
53. "Politeness is the flower of humanity." (Joseph Joubert)
54. "Tact is the ability to help others get on their feet without stepping on their toes." (Curt Goetz)
55. "There is nothing in another person that does not exist in me. This is the only basis for understanding among people." (Erich Fromm)
56. "No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of it for another." (Charles Dickens)
57. "Into the heart plant compassion - if you give compassion. Then your heart grows, becomes worthy of pity." (William Shakespeare)
58. "I wish people would realize that the boundaries of compassion are not where the world draws them." (Vincent van Gogh)
59. "As long as people think that animals don't feel, animals will have to feel that people don't think." (Unknown)
60. "To powerfully transform as many sufferings as possible into joys is right compassion." (Friedrich Lienhard)

Empathy Quotes 61 - 72

61. "Many people would rather be envied than pitied." (Friedrich von Bodenstedt)
62. "Being empathetic and feeling are two different things. One is a matter of the heart, the other is a matter of judgment." (Denis Diderot)
63. "Compassion is what makes us a wonderful community." (David Garrick)
64. "There is very little you can beat into a child, but no limit to what you can hug out of it." (Astrid Lindgren)
65. "The greatness of a man does not depend on the greatness of his field of action." (Erich Kästner)
66. "In reality, the other person is your most sensitive self in another body." (Khalil Gibran)
67. "The secret to success is to understand the other person's point of view." (Henry Ford)
68. "The political dictionary is very limited: The word compassion, among others, does not appear in it." (Carmen Sylva)
69. "Pity is the enemy's weapon in its own ranks." (Unknown)
70. "The most sincere compassion is felt by those who know the pain from their own experience." (John Gay)
71. "Kindness, love, compassion, gentleness are not things for sissies. They are things that the world ultimately longs for." (Desmond Tutu)
72. "Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief." (Marcus Tullius Cicero)

Frequently asked questions about empathy and compassion

Use empathy quotes and sayings about compassion!

Empathy is an important key to solving the greatest challenges of our time. Be it the climate change, the World hunger or the end of the Cruelty to animals. All of us who can empathize with others have the best chance of making a lasting difference. Use these quotes about empathy and compassion to promote your personal attitude and the empathy of many other people.

Do you have questions, tips or more empathy quotes that are missing from this list? Then feel free to write me a comment!

Stay compassionate,

PS.: Under Environmental protection quotes you will find a huge list of rousing and motivating sayings for a sustainable society. And under Tips for sustainable living to find out how you can integrate sustainability into your everyday life. Have fun!