B. C. Forbes Quotes

I definitely have sympathy for people who are struggling. I've met with young Muslims who have told me about their struggles.

I try to consider people's perspectives and not just my own.

Said one oyster to a neighboring oyster, "I have a very great pain within me. It is heavy and round and I am in distress." And the other oyster replied with haughty complacence, "Praise be to the heavens and to the sea, I have no pain within me. I am well and whole both within and without." At that moment a crab was passing by and heard the two oysters, and he said to the one who was well and whole both within and without, "Yes, you are well and whole; but the pain that your neighbor bears is a pearl of exceeding beauty."

Nothing helps us build our perspective more than developing compassion for others. Compassion is a sympathetic feeling. It involves the willingness to put yourself in someone else's shoes, to take the focus off yourself and to imagine what it's like to be in someone else's predicament, and simultaneously, to feel love for that person. It's the recognition that other people's problems, their pain and frustrations, are every bit as real as our own-often far worse. In recognizing this fact and trying to offer some assistance, we open our own hearts and greatly enhance our sense of gratitude.

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.

Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else's shoes for a while.

I have a lot of compassion for human beings in life experiences, so I allow myself to feel what these characters are feeling and don't have a problem accepting that.

We can empathize as deeply as we can empathize.

I can't write about your pain; I only know my own.

I can tell you and promise you that I've had struggles in my life. And I would love to have people understand that Mitt and I have compassion for people that are struggling.

None knows the weight of another's burden.

When you are in trouble, people who call to sympathize are really looking for the particulars.

You shall find out how salt is the taste of another man's bread, and how hard is the way up and down another man's stairs.

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.

How can you expect a man who's warm to understand one who's cold?

When you're not involved, other people's unhappiness seems to be about the funniest damn thing on earth because you think you can solve it, that you are God, that you are above this, and that their unhappiness is just such useless toil and agony. If it's you, it ceases to be a comedy.

It's often difficult to get perspective on your own stories, on your own experiences, without talking them through with someone who is genuinely interested in thinking about them. And that's the key.

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares.

Tragedies make you realize how selfish you are.

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

I believe, in general, that even people that are self-pitying, you can feel for them.

If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.

People aren't very good at other people's pain.

I consider all drama to be the opportunity to see the world from another person's point of view. That seems to be the point of drama, really. And thereby to encourage understanding and even love.