Philip Seymour Hoffman Quotes

Suffering is easier to endure when shared.

One day I was sitting in my own pain, and suddenly all the pain and troubles of the world came to me. I received all the pain of the world, all through my body.

I feel that if I'm going through something, I'm sure someone else is, too.

We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

… people never become a mass, they remain entities, and so you are able to feel human suffering and make others feel it because it is represented to you by individuals

It's easy when you have suffered to feel the link with what others have gone through.

We are all connected. The pain and suffering of others is yours also, on some level, whether you choose to pay attention or not. The reason we can't achieve total bliss is because you're not here solo.

Humanity has this need to hear stories because they connect us with other people, they teach us about our own feelings. We feel less lonely when we see other people going through the same things, even if they're fictional characters.

So whatever I find true for myself, other people might also relate to.

Now that I'm suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer more than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims....and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But - how can I put this? I'm almost......drawn to them.

Things that feel super personal actually feel really universal. It's sort of the more you really identify something specific within yourself, the more people connect to it because ultimately we are all connected in some way.

That's why we read fiction, isn't it? To remind us that whatever we suffer, we're not the only ones?

When we suffer we have made it into a personal affair. We shut out all the suffering of mankind.

It's strange how we always want other people to feel what we feel. It must be a basic human drive. Misery loves company, right? Or when you see a movie that you love, don't you want to drag all your friends to see it as well? Because it's only good the second time if it's the first time for somebody else—as if their experience somehow resonates inside of you.

To connect to people at the deepest level, you need stories.

There are no bonds so strong as those which are formed by suffering together

Enjoying the joys of others and suffering with them-these are the best guides for man.

We know from many forms of suffering that what is important first is a witness - people want to know that someone else knows what's happening, that they're not alone - and someone who listens to what is needed and tries to help.

I think everybody wants to connect. There is nothing worse than feeling disconnected. And stories that really move people and make people care are the ones where they feel some sort of connection.

If others are happy, we will be happy. If others suffer, ultimately we all suffer.

Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than those who are most content.

If you're a person and care about other people - I don't think I have any sort of special understanding or anything, I think any feeling person would experience similar things if given the same opportunities to see the things I've been lucky enough to see and meet the people I've been lucky enough to meet.

We're not the only people that have had to suffer, there have always been people that've had to.

We're all human beings. Experience is experience, let's just be honest. Let's not try and dissect suffering into a race, or whatever you want to call it. We're all human beings, one way or another. All races have gone through times that are challenging; that's part of being a human.