When anesthesia was developed, it was for many decades routinely withheld from women giving birth, since women were supposed to suffer. One of the few societies to take a contrary view was the Huichol tribe in Mexico. The Huichol believed that the pain of childbirth should be shared, so the mother would hold on to a string tied to her husband's testicles. With each painful contraction, she would give the string a yank so that the man could share the burden. Surely if such a mechanism were more widespread, injuries in childbirth would garner more attention.

One of the benefits of aligning yourself with an indistinct cluster of people is that claiming to feel their pain is often enough.

When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.

Most people have no imagination. If they could imagine the sufferings of others, they would not make them suffer so. What separated a German mother from a French mother? Slogans which deafened us so that we could not hear the truth.

I'll put it on my table where I keep my drawings, Hassan said.His saying that made me kind of sad. Sad for who Hassan was, where he lived. For how he'd accepted the fact that he'd grow old in that mud shack in the yard, the way his father had.

Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy.

Most of us tend to belittle all suffering except our own, said Mary. I think it's fear. We don't want to come too near in case we're sucked in and have to share it.

Very few people have ever experienced the feeling of being completely understood. When they experience it, it can become one of the richest feelings they have ever had.

Empathy is the door to wisdom.

For you see, when us people who know run into each other that's an event. It almost never happens. Sometimes we meet each other and neither guesses that the other is one who knows. That's a bad thing. It's happened to me a lot of times. But you see there are so few of us.

I call him religious who understands the suffering of others.

Empathy nurtures wisdom. Apathy cultivates ignorance.

Any man filled with empathy is capable of gaining valuable insights on the human condition through the suffering of others. You do not need to suffer to know suffering, but you need empathy first to identify and feel the suffering of others around you.

A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see

Among all the creatures of creation, the gods favor us: We are the only ones who can empathize with their problems.

No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care

Faith keeps our ships moving, while empathy and the memories of our experiences lead to wisdom.

There is no key to open the heart of another - except curiosity.

Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you'll be a mile away and have his shoes.

I think the act of reading imbues the reader with a sensitivity toward the outside world that people who don't read can sometimes lack. I know it seems like a contradiction in terms; after all reading is such a solitary, internalizing act that it appears to represent a disengagement from day-to-day life. But reading, and particularly the reading of fiction, encourages us to view the world in new and challenging ways...It allows us to inhabit the consciousness of another which is a precursor to empathy, and empathy is, for me, one of the marks of a decent human being.