Pema Chodron Quotes

I've had times in my life when I really haven't been able to figure myself out.

You want to feel, 'I know that character.'

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

It's not a very nice thing to not have empathy. I would like to have empathy. In the past I haven't been very empathetic with other people.

If a man's at odds to know his own mind it's because he hasn't got aught but his mind to know it with.

It's in understanding yourself deeply that you can lend yourself to another person's circumstances and another person's experience.

Each aspect within us needs understanding and compassion. If we are unwilling to give it to ourselves how can we expect the world to give it to us?

I would like to think that as a result of not just my own experiences, but at least being empathetic and compassionate about other people's experiences and plights and tragedies, that I am affected by it and learn from it.

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.

I found the emotion that as an athlete you block out, and it really helped me to understand myself as a person. I'm a really emotional person and it helped make me a better person.

Self-hatred is OK. I have self-hatred, too. It's OK. What's bad is if you don't know how to get out of it, don't know how to manage it. Self-hatred is, in fact, a good thing if you can clearly see the mechanism of it, because it helps you to understand others.

I'm sensitive, you know, about some things, and as some of my partners could attest to, incredibly insensitive.

I have no human feelings.

If you don't understand yourself you don't understand anybody else.

I was raised in an atmosphere of 'everything's fine.' But as I got older, I was like, 'Well no, everything's not fine. There is stuff that's sad.' I am a really sensitive person. I think I am too sensitive sometimes.

Self-awareness is not self-centeredness, and spirituality is not narcissism. 'Know thyself' is not a narcissistic pursuit.

There's something very touching to me about someone almost communicating to themselves in some way - trying to come to some deeper understanding of yourself and having compassion for yourself.

I realized a while back that I have an innate ability to be compassionate, and I saw that the strength of compassion is something that healers have and healers use.'

It's important to determine not just the quality of your mind but the fullness of your heart.

Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well.

I used to believe that hurting would make you more alive to the hurting of others. I used to believe in feeling bad because somebody else did. Now I'm not so sure of either.

The more you can be self-aware and honest about yourself, the more you can cultivate that in other people.

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

Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

I understand and I don't understand human beings.