Empathy Quotes

"Healing depends on listening with the inner ear — stopping the incessant blather, and listening. Fear keeps us chattering — fear that wells up from the past, fear of blurting out what we really fear, fear of future repercussions. It is our very fear of the future that distorts the now that could lead to a different future if we dared to be whole in the present."

— Further to my campaign to abolish the cliché.

"Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all: the apathy of human beings."

— A friend of mine is an ordained deacon in the Presbyterian Church. One day he asked me, "Do we say, 'I'll pray for you' as a commitment to walk beside friends through the struggle at hand, or as closure to the discussion and ever thinking about it again?"

"The king had two sons — one an optimist, the other a pessimist. The king gave the pessimist everything he desired, and he gave the optimist a room full of horse manure. The pessimist was despondent because he no longer had anything to look forward to. The optimist was as happy as he could be. 'With all this manure,' he said, 'there must be a pony in here somewhere.'"

— This is why I keep digging.

"In 1966, Andy Dufrane escaped from Shawshank Prison," voiceover, Ellis Boy "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman).

— One of the most inspirational movies of all time; this one got me through a lot, being exactly what I needed, when I needed it. One of those summary quotes that brings the total emotional experience to the forefront in the simplest of phrases. Assuming, of course, that you've seen the picture.