Lynn Nottage Quotes

My problems are so miniscule compared to what's going on in the world. In that sense, I feel liberated.

I grew up doing a lot of traveling. My mom left home when she was 15 and traveled to 48 different countries and speaks six different languages. So I grew up with my eyes open. She raised me so that if my heart says something is wrong, I have to go help. What's right is right and what's wrong is wrong.

I'm not an activist; I don't look for controversy. I'm not a political person, but I'm a person with compassion. I care passionately about equal rights. I care about human rights. I care about animal rights.

So we gravitated to shows and issues and causes that made people care.

When people said Africa would change me, I didn't understand what they meant. To see the poverty in the townships, for instance, is overwhelming. I found it heart-wrenching to see young children walking barefoot and hungry in the dirt. I'm the kind of person who wants to change the world right here and now, so I got frustrated.

To keep the Golden Rule we must put ourselves in other people's places, but to do that consists in and depends upon picturing ourselves in their places.

I try to be a good human being and keep up with what's going on in the world by reading and staying in touch with the current events.

I don't think anyone, no matter what, can find perfect happiness until they understand exactly who they are and how every little thing they do can affect the world around them. I think perfect happiness would be a world where everyone is constantly striving to understand everyone else.

In my work as an actor, I have been given even greater insights and have been guided towards empathy and a consciousness of those who are less fortunate.

Keep this question in mind: 'What would I think of this if I exchanged places with the other person?' It paves the way to more successful action.

I love individuals who care about what's going on the world and how we can help make it a better place.

I think, at the end of the day, acting and activism are both about empathy. You're trying to get people to see other people as real and human. And to care.

We can't afford to live in isolation, and we need to teach our kids that the things that they do not only matter to others far away but impact others who live far away, and there are ripples of effect.

I'm always thinking about the bigger picture and always feeling so much for everybody else, and kind of experiencing the pain of the world, personally.

Once kids begin to realize that they are connected to a greater good and greater whole, then that will lessen the possibility that they will act out violently because it creates empathy.

We cannot stay enveloped in our own reality and turn a blind eye to the plight of others.

You must be an artist and a citizen of the world. You must speak to this stuff that's happening. You must do what you can to shine a light on it, help people through it.

There is no question Angelina makes a difference in our world by bringing awareness to so many causes. Her compassion for humanity alone always makes me honored to call her my sister.

A love of reading shows empathy, the desire to understand how others live or act or might act - and why.

We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us.

It's fashionable to be indifferent to other people's suffering

I'm quite shocked and have been for quite a while as for the way people are treating each other. That's why I go out and I speak for the hungry, and if I see somebody needs a hug during the day, I'll go and give them a hug, and I think we should all use a little bit more of that.

There is in Aristotle an almost complete absence of what may be called benevolence or philanthropy. The sufferings of mankind . . . there is no evidence that they cause him unhappiness except when the sufferers happen to be his friends.

We must think beyond ourselves

At the door of every happy person there should be a man with a hammer whose knock would serve as a constant reminder of the existence of unfortunate people.