In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had."
—F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby
Every life, properly understood, is compelling. Anyone aspiring to be an artist knows there’s no such thing as why-bother or nothing-to-see.
—David Shields
Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the Earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
—Eugene Debs
Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or as heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
—Henry Miller in The World of Sex
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.
—Harper Lee in To Kill a Mockingbird
The situation of the world is still like this. People completely identify with one side, one ideology.… Reconciliation is to understand both sides, to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then to go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side. Doing only that will be a great help for peace.
—Thích Nhất Hạnh
People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.
—Oscar Wilde
Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.
—Anne Sexton
Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.
—Dodie Smith
My feeling is that there is nothing in life but refraining from hurting others, and comforting those who are sad.
—Olive Schreiner
As a child, I lived with being punier than other boys in class. The only consolation was my parents' empathy—they encouraged constant trips to the local drugstore for chocolate milk shakes to fatten me up. The shakes made me happy, but still, all through grammar school, other kids shoved me around.
—James D. Watson
She's your one. The one who reaches you. The one who makes you different.
—Abbi Glines in Hold On Tight
In the sick room, ten cents' worth of human understanding equals ten dollars' worth of medical science.
—Martin H. Fischer