Mark Goulston Quotes

Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.

I have begun to sympathetically understand Paul, though I don't like him much.

You have to put yourself in people's shoes in certain situations because you don't know what people really think or what they're really going through.

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.

Billy Graham talks about how he doesn't judge people. I don't either. Some people I am just pissed at.

In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him.

When you assume negative intent, you're angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response.

The irony is that I'm actually a very empathetic person, but I don't believe in sympathy at all.

There is one particular argument that I call our 'ancient war.' If it could be summed up in one phrase, it would be, 'You don't get it. You don't understand what it's like to be me living with you.' There is such truth in that statement. None of us can really appreciate what it is like to be the other person, what that point of view feels like.

I learned the most important thing is to put yourself in the shoes of the players.

When two people talk with mutual respect and listen with a real interest in understanding another point of view, when they try to put themselves in the place of another, to get inside their skin, they change the world, even if it is only by a minute amount, because they are establishing equality between two human beings.

Sympathy relies on a common experience. If you're clumsy, you might have sympathy for others who tend to bump into things. Empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to understand another person's feelings even if you've never experienced them yourself.

If we were all happy and getting along every second of the day, we'd probably make some schmaltzy record.

Empathy is not a betrayal of one's cause.

Empathy is a skill like any other human skill - and if you get a chance to practice, you can get better at it.

Empathy is one of our greatest tools of business that is most underused.

But when you meet with the enemy and genuinely try to understand his or her perspective, you lose the enemy as a political tool. And that's the eternal obstacle.

When people express opinions that differ from yours, take it as a chance to grow. Seek to understand over being understood. Be curious, not defensive. The only way to disarm another human being is by listening.

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.

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.'

Hate won't solve anything.

I am the type of person that likes to put myself in someone's shoes to 'get' it.

It's always easier to dismiss other people than to go through the awkward and time consuming process of understanding them.

I don't like controversies. I try to understand where a person comes from and where he is.

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.