Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

… people can't imagine someone else's point of view.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.

It's only possible to see people when one is able to see the world as others see it.

I consider all drama to be the opportunity to see the world from another person's point of view. That seems to be the point of drama, really. And thereby to encourage understanding and even love.

You can't have empathy for somebody that's gone through something you haven't - because, definitionally, you can't. But you can feel for them and have sympathy for them. And that's what this country needs to practice more. It's about realizing that you do come from a different place.

Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love.

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

Empathy is the most mysterious transaction that the human soul can have, and it's accessible to all of us, but we have to give ourselves the opportunity to identify, to plunge ourselves in a story where we see the world from the bottom up or through another's eyes or heart.

You shall find out how salt is the taste of another man's bread, and how hard is the way up and down another man's stairs.

I wanted to show life and to see ourselves and our behaviour through an outsider's eye... from the point of view of someone who knows nothing about being a human being... He doesn't have the feelings that the rest of us do.

Walk a mile in my shoes is good advice. Our children will learn to respect others if they are used to imagining themselves in another's place.

Since I've written many of my books from a less-than-sympathetic viewpoint, I think that being able to see things from all sides is a useful talent.

Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own.

You can accomplish by kindness what you cannot by force.

Interest does not tie nations together; it sometimes separates them. But sympathy and understanding does unite them.

I have labored carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate, but to understand human actions

I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.

Understanding the other person's viewpoint is the beginning of polical wisdom,

In life and in politics, it's helpful to try to perceive the other person through the most generous lens.

I have started using the expression 'compassionate activism': It's about keeping my heart open so that I can understand the point of view of the other person.

I'm not a fighter, I'm a lover.

A helpful thing for me has always been - this is from a great acting teacher Declan Donnellan - is this beautiful way of expressing how and why people do things that other people may not do. It's a simple sentence that says, 'I understand you; you don't understand me.'

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.

It is human nature to imagine, to put yourself in another's shoes. The past may be another country. But the only passport required is empathy.