Quotes: Empathy

When a mother quarrels with a daughter, she has a double dose of unhappiness hers from the conflict, and empathy with her daughter’s from the conflict with her. Throughout her life a mother retains this special need to maintain a good relationship with her daughter.

I’m cursed with empathy. I’m also by nature way too opinionated.

There is also a natural and very, very strong empathy with the underdog, with people who have suffered, people who have been pushed around by foreigners in particular, but also by their own people.

The discoveries of how we can grow and the insights we need to have really come from the inside out. To have genuine empathy, not as a make-nice tool but as an understanding, is essential to the next step.

Having played many roles of scientific intellect I do have an empathy for that world. It’s been hard on me because flying the Enterprise for seven years in Star Trek and sitting in Cerebro in X-men has led people to believe that I know what I’m talking about. But I’m still trying to work out how to operate the air conditioning unit on my car.

True contentment comes with empathy.

Poets have to be sensitive to their audience, but it does not mean that they censor themselves. I realise my audience is diverse. Some will read with empathy and curiosity while others will take offense.

If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.

There are many respects in which America, if it can bring itself to act with the magnanimity and the empathy appropriate to its size and power, can be an intelligent example to the world.

I’m less interested in slasher, and go more for roles that can affect you on a personal level. I’m interested in human empathy in the movies I see, and in the ones I am a part of.