Paul Tournier Quotes

Someone to tell it to is one of the fundamental needs of human beings.

I hope it's enabling me to deal with another human being who's more important to me than I am.

I'm a lot more interested in people than I used to be. I used to be most interested in abstract ideas, and people were an afterthought, but that's changed a bit.

But you can't realize, you can't know what another person goes through.

To be truly empathetic, we have to acknowledge that we're all human, we're all flawed, and that life can be difficult.

Someone feeling wronged is like someone feeling thirsty. Don’t tell them they aren’t. Sit with them and have a drink.

Understanding of our fellow human beings...becomes fruitful only when it is sustained by sympathetic feelings in joy and sorrow.

I really like feeling connected to people and feeling like I have a good, solid sense of empathy.

I've never been interested in things that sparkle and shine; I'm more interested in people.

Someone's got to be interested in how I feel, just because I'm here and I'm real.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.

I think that no matter how dark a person is, the more you learn about them, the more you understand about their life, the more you can sympathize with them or even root for them.

I relate to people and roles that are about the arc of human experience, things that everyday people deal with every day.

I've gotten to meet so many people who've inspired me as a human being.

Basic human contact - the meeting of eyes, the exchanging of words - is to the psyche what oxygen is to the brain. If you're feeling abandoned by the world, interact with anyone you can.

I'll meet someone on the street and blurt out my most intimate details. I think everybody secretly - or not so secretly - wants to be understood, and I just want to connect, you know?

Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable.

I felt along with her - not the physical pain, of course, but all her mental anguish. You can't be detached. She needed to have someone who understood what was happening in her mind.

I feel like the one insight that's extremely comforting to me about the world is that we all share the same pool of emotion that we draw from.

I wanted a good relationship with my mother, and I realized I had a choice: Either I could spend all my time angry that she didn't give me the hugs I thought I needed, or I could understand that she hugs differently. It's not a spread-open-the-arms, 'come here' hug. She hugs by sheltering me from her worries.

Although I'm not particularly troubled myself, I do have a lot of empathy for troubled characters.

Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention.

Art is the closest we can come to understanding how a stranger really feels.

I think half or almost all of the pain in the world … is people not feeling seen. It’s like Mr. Rogers, my hero, says: “Love is the root of everything … love or the lack of it.”

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