Anais Nin Quotes

Every being cries out in silence to be read differently. Do not be indifferent to these cries.

You can't tell what a man is like or what he is thinking when you are looking at him. You must get around behind him and see what he has been looking at.

Those who cannot hear an angry shout may strain to hear a whisper.

A liberal education will impart an awareness of the amazing and precious complexity of human relationships. Since those relationships are violated more often out of insensitiveness than out of deliberate intent, whatever increases sensitiveness of perception and understanding humanizes life.

I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.

If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.

You must not become a mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking about, not what they say.

I always think that if you look at anyone in detail, you will have empathy for them because you recognize them as a human being, no matter what they've done.

Dogs are mute and obedient, but they have watched us and know us and can smell how pitiful we are.

Tact is after all a kind of mind reading.

I think that I have a sensitivity toward people, and that is a strength.

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

Once you really commence to see things, then you really commence to feel things.

To love a person is to know and love the person. But we can pick up an enormous amount about another human being just by exchanging a couple of sentences. It's not yet knowledge; it's an intuition that motivates you to want to find out more.

She has no imagination and that means no compassion.

Our friends interpret the world and ourselves to us, if we take them tenderly and truly.

You have a little bit of feeling for everyone you play.

When you write, you take the ball and you hold it up to the light and you turn it slowly, and let people draw their own conclusions. And try to bring empathy to all sides of the equation.

My mother is not a model. She is not perfect. That awareness is part of learning to love someone. Predicting the actions of someone is an act of love. We persist, even when we get it wrong. That's the beauty of love.

People forget that everyone has feelings, regardless of their career choice.

It doesn't hurt to show some empathy.

I don't see people. I don't see men and women at all. When I see them, I see... their mothers and fathers. I see how old they are inside. Like when I look at the president, or anybody in a record company, or a store owner, I may see a little boy behind the counter with the face of an old man. And that's who I talk to.

It's challenging, in a way, but if you depict anyone with all the colors of human emotion and show those moments - with their families, with their children - the worst of us have elements of real humanity.

I hope people who read my books feel empathy for us and really see us as complicated people.

You really have to be careful about what you do and think about other people around you, as human beings who feel things, and you have to learn to be empathetic and notice the signs of people who are going through trouble.