Michael Dyson Quotes

It is the mark of a greatly educated person to be deeply moved by statistics.

I've always read in order to figure out people more, and that includes bad people and good people.

Becoming a reader grows our horizons, our appetite for the good, the true and the beautiful, and our empathy.

My contention is, first, that we should want more from our educational efforts than adequate academic achievement and, second, that we will not achieve even that meager success unless our children believe that they themselves are cared for and learn to care for others.

The problem isn't how to make the world more technological. It's about how to make the world more humane again.

In order to be kind, one must do. There is no point in thinking good thoughts and not acting on them. There is no currency in wishing things were better but not rolling up one's sleeves and helping to change them.

We must learn to outgrow our egos in exchange for constructive dialogue rather than debate. In addition, we must be capable of stating problems and proposing solutions clearly and succinctly, without distortion of meaning or misunderstanding, even when these solutions are radically opposed to accepted norms.

It's so easy to criticize your own time, and I see that as a problem, even for myself, as a listener.

Three key humanist virtues are courage, cognition, and caring - not dependence, ignorance, or insensitivity to the needs of others.

Empathy is not simply a matter of trying to imagine what others are going through, but having the will to muster enough courage to do something about it. In a way, empathy is predicated upon hope.

One of the problems with being relatively conscious and human, is that you want to help everybody.

Understanding, and action proceeding from understanding and guided by it, is one weapon against the world's bombardment, the one medicine, the one instrument by which liberty, health, and joy may be shaped . . . in the individual, and in the race.

Compassionate action involves working with ourselves as much as working with others.

Our society needs to re-establish a culture of caring.

If you are silent, be silent out of love. If you speak, speak out of love.

You'd be surprised how much you don't understand what other people see your actions as; how other people view the things you say and the things that you do. And a lot of times just clarifying what your intentions are with people makes a huge difference.

And I think that if something doesn't make sense, forcing yourself to understand it from [Chris Nolan's] perspective makes you better.

As human beings we each have a responsibility to care for humanity. Expressing concern for others brings inner strength and deep satisfaction. As social animals, human beings need friendship, but friendship doesn't come from wealth and power, but from showing compassion and concern for others.

Why do people always think hurting others is all right, as long as they hurt themselves as well?

Brilliant people never think of the lives they smash, being brilliant.

It is not enough to be compassionate, we must act.

There is absolutely no single aspect of one's personality that is more important to develop than empathy, which is not a skill at which men typically are asked to excel. I believe empathy is not only the core of art, literature and music, but should also be at the core of society, from ethics to economics.

You need to be empathetic in your own personal life and we help our neighbors and our friends out who are struggling in our neighborhoods. But we don't make bad decisions based on empathy.

Help people with problems, your problems disappear.