Empathy is not just some vague urging to be kind. Empathy is a precondition for certain knowledge of the world. The isolated individual, trying to contemplate the world alone, has no chance of understanding it.

Timothy Snyder
Empathy knowledge isolation learning contemplation

"Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgement at how they carry it. "

Gregory Boyle
poverty Poor judgment wealth compassion Empathy awe

"We're not trying to play God. We're trying to play human."

Daniel Berrigan
humanity activism Empathy

"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read."

James Baldwin
pain Empathy reading history black history suffering

“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

Bryan Stevenson
Justice value brokenness change Empathy forgiveness

There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried.

Oscar A. Romero
Grief Empathy