Walter E. Williams Quotes

Reading will put you into the minds and hearts of others. It might help you understand why other people do what they do sometimes.

The desire to reach hearts is wise

I am working on a technical paper on compassion. So I am reading everything I can on the subject, including my own mind and heart.

One must learn to be a sponge if one wants to be loved by hearts that overflow.

Sympathy is the first great lesson which man should learn. It will be ill for him if he proceeds no farther; if his emotions are but excited to roll back on his heart, and to be fostered in luxurious quiet. But unless he learns to feel for things in which he has no personal interest, he can achieve nothing generous or noble.

We shall hurt others less. Isn't it, after all, what you always wanted?

Non-reaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but also of dissolving the collective human ego.

I will only take something or agree to do something that I feel like I understand, and inherent in understanding is empathy.

Many people are unhappy and are not experiencing life to its fullest because they’ve closed their hearts to compassion, they are motivated by only what they want and what they think they need. They rarely do anything for anybody else unless they have an ulterior goal in mind. They are self-involved and self-centered.

No one's hurt is too small, no worry too removed, no blessing so elusive that it cannot be seen by the eyes in the back of the human heart.

Much of the insensibility and hardness of the world is due to the lack of imagination which prevents a realization of the experiences of other people.

It is debatable which is causing us more harm - hot-headed ignorance or cold-hearted intellectualism.

One of the best ways to educate our hearts is to look at our interaction with other people, because our relationships with others are fundamentally a reflection of our relationship with ourselves.

"The true essence of humankind is kindness. There are other qualities which come from education or knowledge, but it is essential, if one wishes to be a genuine human being and impart satisfying meaning to one's existence, to have a good heart."

Compassion, the fairest associate of the heart.

No one can deal with the hearts of men unless he has the sympathy which is given by love.

Many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know. I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. The wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

being physically intimidating didn't keep you from getting your feelings hurt. Everyone's heart is the same size.

We have a lot of politicians who have really small brains and really big hearts.

Empathetic listening is an awesome medication for the hurting heart.

No man ever did a designed injury to another, but at the same time he did a greater to himself.

Imagine you are walking in the woods and you see a small dog sitting by a tree. As you approach it, it suddenly lunges at you, teeth bared. You are frightened and angry. But then you notice that one of its legs is caught in a trap. Immediately your mood shifts from anger to concern: You see that the dog's aggression is coming from a place of vulnerability and pain. This applies to all of us. When we behave in hurtful ways, it is because we are caught in some kind of trap. The more we look through the eyes of wisdom at ourselves and one another, the more we cultivate a compassionate heart.

It is by love alone that we understand anything

One learns peoples through the heart, not the eyes or the intellect.

you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead.