Certainly I’ll never be able to put myself in the situation that people growing up in the less developed countries are in. I’ve gotten a bit of a sense of it by being out there and meeting people and talking with them.

Love other human beings as you would love yourself.

We cannot possibly let ourselves get frozen into regarding everyone we do not know as an absolute stranger.

The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren’t in a very good mood.

It is a very rare man who does not victimize the helpless.

Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

There really is no difference between the bully and the victim.

I come from a poor family, I have seen poverty. The poor need respect, and it begins with cleanliness.

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

Strength and compassion are not mutually exclusive.

Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.

The good man is the friend of all living things.

For a tear is quickly dried, especially when shed for the misfortunes of others.

Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

I feel like I write so that people can think of it as theirs. If my song is exactly about your life right now, then it is – I don’t even want to say that it’s mine, because it’s yours.

When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

Listen with your eyes for feelings.

I don’t join the New Atheists. So, for example, I wouldn’t have the arrogance to lecture some mother who hopes to see her dying child in Heaven – that’s none of my business, ultimately. I won’t lecture her on the philosophy of science.

We have an obligation to help people that cannot help themselves. The mentally retarded, the physically retarded, et cetera.

I love reading people. I really enjoy watching, observing, and being able to figure out a person, the reason they wore that dress, the reason they smell the way they do.

My father wasn’t around when I was a kid, and I used to always say, ‚Why me? Why don’t I have a father? Why isn’t he around? Why did he leave my mother?‘ But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, ‚I don’t know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?‘

A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.

If someone decides they’re not going to be happy, it’s not your problem. You don’t have to spend your time and energy trying to cheer up someone who has already decided to stay in a bad mood. Believe it or not, you can actually hurt people by playing into their self-pity.

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.

You have to understand that people that are hurting are going to criticize.

I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn’t touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.

I don’t think that much about my relationship with my mother and what it did to me. I sometimes feel terrible regret about her, what her life must have been like. Often, when I’m enjoying something, I think of how meager her rewards were and how much courage, in a way, she needed to go on living.

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?

When I’m being funny, I try not to offend. I don’t think much of what I’ve done has been in really ghastly taste. I don’t think I have embarrassed many people or distressed them.

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense.

It’s presumptuous to say you know how somebody feels.

I am worrying about my country. I feel I have a responsibility as a novelist to do something.

Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart, don’t know how to laugh either.

Many people look at me and think they know me but they don’t at all. This is the real me. I am a humble person, a feeling person. A person who cares about others, who wants to help others.

That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity’s small change in general society.

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

It’s hard for me to grasp the concept of somebody being nervous when I’m talking to them.

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don’t regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed.

I hate letting my teammates down. I know I’m not going to make every shot. Sometimes I try to make the right play, and if it results in a loss, I feel awful. I don’t feel awful because I have to answer questions about it. I feel awful in that locker room because I could have done something more to help my teammates win.

There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.

Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.

I have no human feelings.

Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions.

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

So let’s be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

When I write, it’s like choosing which shoes I’m going to put on. More often than not, my lyrics are personal – but I sometimes have to put myself in other people’s shoes.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.