Jane Hirshfield Quotes

One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care. Such is the quality of bees.

Unless a man has pity he is not truly a man. If a man has not wept at the worlds pain he is only half a man, and there will always be pain in the world, knowing this does not mean that a man shall dispair. A good man will seek to take pain out of things. A foolish man will not even notice it, except in himself, and the poor unfortunate evil man will drive pain deeper into things and spread it about wherever he goes.

If each man or woman could understand that every other human life is as full of sorrows, or joys, or base temptations, of heartaches and of remorse as his own . . . how much kinder, how much gentler he would be.

The most important thing in my life, and the thing I try to focus on, is to try not to live a life of cruelty. That means trying to make sure I look people in the eye when I meet them. Sometimes you jump in a taxi, or maybe you only have two minutes with someone, and you never see them again. I try to always look them in the eye and have a real experience of what it is to communicate with someone.

You cannot laugh and be unkind at the same time

Well, I think that if you sincerely try to imagine what life is like for another person - not in a mocking way, not in a satirical way, but in a sincere, compassionate way - I don't think that's exploitive.

Only when the sense of the pain of others begins does man begin.

The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.

I think that I have a sensitivity toward people, and that is a strength.

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

It doesn't hurt to show some empathy.

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

You really have to be careful about what you do and think about other people around you, as human beings who feel things, and you have to learn to be empathetic and notice the signs of people who are going through trouble.

Empathy is what obsesses me. And watching empathy recede in the world is terrifying.

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.

I put a lot of emphasis on how to treat people. The reason for this is simple. The real success of our personal lives and careers can best be measured by the relationships we have with the people most dear to us - our family, friends, and coworkers. If we fail in this aspect of our lives, no matter how vast our worldly possessions or how high on the corporate ladder we climb, we will have achieved very little.

Kindness and a caring mind are two separate qualities. Kindness is manners. It is superficial custom, an acquired practice. Not so the mind. The mind is deeper, stronger, and, I believe, it is far more inconstant.

People are mean to each other.

No one needs to teach you to be mean; we need to be taught to be kind.

Sarcasm and compassion are two of the qualities that make life on Earth tolerable.

We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you.

When one is innocent of pain, of the havoc it can wreak, one is never cruel. Cruelty is born of pain, of a need to hurt in turn.

Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone's feelings.

Look at us human beings: it's so much easier to be right than to love.