Jonathan Haidt Quotes

Changing your attitude from self-centerdness to understanding requires desire and commitment to always try to see things from the other persons point of view.

The best way to understand somebody else is to put yourself in his place.

The idea of faking empathy to take a step forward to understanding - it's a really powerful idea.

We think empathy is innate, but it's not. It's a muscle you're working.

I don't try to kind of go for the overly sympathetic. I don't really like sympathy; I don't like it for myself. Sometimes sympathy you feel like, you're kind of trying to victimize someone.

To listen with empathy is the most important human skill.

Empathy may be the single most important quality that must be nurtured to give peace a fighting chance.

I'm fortunate enough to have learned not to waste time getting frustrated with my kids, or co-workers, or friends and family for not doing everything I wish they would. If someone doesn't respond to me the way I want them to, I understand that it doesn't have anything to do with me.

It's kind of funny that I've been branded as the empathy lady when, really, what I'm doing is questioning and interrogating empathy.

When people express opinions that differ from yours, take it as a chance to grow. Seek to understand over being understood. Be curious, not defensive. The only way to disarm another human being is by listening.

It's always easier to dismiss other people than to go through the awkward and time consuming process of understanding them.

People are starting to understand the other side's perspective and that's where empathy can sort of begin - once you quit judging other people but just understand where they're coming from.

Instead of calling everybody names, start being more understanding.

Whenever encountering a troublesome person, do not identify him as being cruel or stupid or rude or anything else like that. Instead, see him as a frightened person.

You can either practice being right or practice being kind.

All wars derive from lack of empathy: the incapacity of one to understand and accept the likeness or difference of another. Whether in nations or the encounters of race and sex, competition then replaces compassion, subjection excludes mutuality.

People just tell me I'm supposed to be sensitive, and I'm not. But I think I'm very emotional. I'm very caring.

It's easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient.

No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.

Difficult situations require compassion, level-headedness & the empathy to see issues from somebody else's perspective.

We need to have empathy. When we lose empathy, we lose our humanity.

How barbarous, to deny men the privilege of pursuing what they imagine to be their proper concerns and interests! Yet, in a sense, this is just what you are doing when you allow your indignation to rise at their wrongdoing; for after all, they are only following their own apparent concerns and interests. You say they are mistaken? Why then, tell them so, and explain it to them, instead of being indignant.

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

Don't confuse being 'soft' with seeing the other guy's point of view.

It doesn't do you any service to demonize any group of people. It's much better to try and understand from the inside.