Empathy Limits Quotes

What would be left of our tragedies if an insect were to present us his?

Nobody understands another's sorrow, and nobody another's joy.

I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you.

A man cannot have an idea of perfection in another, which he was never sensible of in himself.

There are occasions when I've pretended to be in a firefight, and then there are people who have really been in a firefight. Clearly it's absolutely ridiculous, and even disrespectful, to suggest that I understand what that is.

In dealing with those who are undergoing great suffering, if you feel "burnout" setting in, if you feel demoralized and exhausted, it is best, for the sake of everyone, to withdraw and restore yourself. The point is to have a long-term perspective.

The most sympathetic of men never fully comprehend woman's concrete situation.

No one really understands the grief or joy of another.

I cannot experience your experience. You cannot experience my experience. We are both invisible men.

One can't love humanity. One can only love people.

As the elephant is powerless to think in the terms of the ant, in spite of the best intentions in the world, even so is the Englishman powerless to think in the terms of, or legislate for, the Indian.

Time has its revenges, but revenge seems so often sour. Wouldn’t we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife with a husband, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that’s why men have invented God – a being capable of understanding.

No one really understands the grief or joy of another. We always imagine that we are approaching some other, but our lines of travel are actually parallel.

Men and women are different, and they can never read each other's mind.

You can't know what it's like to be a major league umpire unless you were a major league umpire.

It's insulting when somebody who is not a member of our community feels like they have a great understanding of what it's like to grow up gay in this country.

We don't believe other people's experiences can tell us all that much about our own. I think this is an illusion of uniqueness.

Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another? We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person's essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?

Does the open wound in another's breast soften the pain of the gaping wound in our own? Or does the blood which is welling from another man's side staunch that which is pouring from our own? Does the general anguish of our fellow creatures lessen our own private and particular anguish? No, no, each suffers on his own account, each struggles with his own grief, each sheds his own tears.

I do not have the female experience. I don't, and I strive to understand it, but I'll never truly be able to. I don't think any men will, really.

Human sympathy has its limits.

It is not to say that everything is fine and a positive attitude is all you need. But I share about values and principles and attitudes and I never tell people I understand their pain.

The reminder that there are people who have worse troubles than you is not an effective pain-killer.

We deny the severity of our loved one's problem not because we are naive, but because we can't know.