Karl A. Menninger Quotes

A good thing to remember is somebody's got it a lot worse than we do.

I think one of my better gifts as a writer is empathy.

You shall find out how salt is the taste of another man's bread, and how hard is the way up and down another man's stairs.

When I hear other people's stories, I like to believe that they contribute to my 'Encyclopedia of Human Experience.' The stories I hear help me expand my definition of what love is, what pain feels like, what sacrifice means, what laughter can do.

I like someone who's suffered from both sides.

But you can't realize, you can't know what another person goes through.

There are a lot of ups and downs. But there are always people who have it worse.

No matter how bad I was feeling, I always thought, 'Stephen must be feeling worse.'

I think about my mom and the things she went through, and things could always be a lot worse.

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 it is the beginning of morality.

God understands how you feel and has faced what you face.

When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint - understand what he is trying to do - nine times out of ten he is trying to do right.

If you read with empathy what Lincoln went through, then you realize what you're going through is nothing compared to what he went through.

No 'we' should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other people's pain.

I see shining fish struggling within tight nets, while I hear orioles singing carefree tunes. Even trivial creatures know the difference between freedom and bondage. Sympathy and compassion should be but natural to the human heart.

You know things are bad when a woman without any legs and who recently lost two of her own kids feels sorry for you.

It's the hardest thing in the world to put yourself in someone else's place, try to really feel what they feel, figure out why they do the things they do. Especially when it's easier to stick a label on something. Or someone.

How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another's heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known? Even if the world's rich and powerful were to put themselves in the shoes of the rest, how much would they really understand the wretched millions suffering around them? So it is when Orhan the novelist peers into the dark corners of his poet friend's difficult and painful life: How much can he really see?

When you feel compassion, you dethrone yourself from the centre of the world.

Souls do not wish to be bullied, but gently brought back; such is the nature of man.

I think when you've gone through a betrayal in life then when somebody's been betrayed you can talk to the person about it. If your husband's been unfaithful to you, you know what that's like, you know how that feels. You can share true empathy with someone.

You can't help it but you were born without a heart. At least you tried to believe what the people with hearts believed — so you were a good man just the same.

We can all reduce our life to a description that makes people feel sorry for ourselves or we can expand our life to a dimension where we connect and give to others.

I think most people who decide to become a musician have to be prepared for some degree of struggle. It makes the art better if you go through some struggles. To be an artist, in any form, you have to develop some sense of compassion and empathy - it's an important quality for everyone to have, on a human level. But I think, as part of our job, you have to be able to do that, so suffering, tends - if you allow it - to let you look on the bright side. It will help with those senses.