Measuring success in cultural diplomacy - the use of education, creative expression in any form, or people-to-people exchange to increase understanding across regions, cultures, or peoples - is challenging. How does one quantify changes in attitude, abandoning stereotypes, or feeling empathy as a result of a performance, a film, a book?

Even if people do wrong, we're social animals, so what can we do about stopping them doing the same things in future? Saying people are 'bad' or 'evil' is just an unwillingness to engage; an unwillingness to try to empathise. That sanctimonious attitude doesn't help anyone.

Neapolitans are extremely empathetic, whereas the typical northern attitude is more about not showing or sharing your feelings.

Throughout my career as a lawyer, teacher and labor leader, books have remained my constant companion - stuffed into a briefcase, overflowing on my bedside table, stacked on my desk at work. Books have carried me to distant worlds, opened new doors and made me feel empathy, compassion, anger, fear, joy, acceptance - and everything in between.

A certain amount of anger doesn't make us less empathetic, less humane, less loving. It just makes us real.

A little anger is a good thing if it isn't on your own behalf, if it's for others deserving of your anger, your empathy.

The opposite of anger is not calmness, its empathy.

Writers don't write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don't. ...If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.

I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.

Being a reader has brought me much joy, laughter, and rich experience. But reading has also wounded me. The sacrament of reading has plowed me open and sown seeds of empathy that have taken root in deep soil. Over the years, reading has caused me to grow from a shallow, self-absorbed youth to one who seeks out the pain of the world. Reading has burdened me with the welfare of my fellow human, but sometimes the burden proves too heavy for my narrow shoulders.

"I empathize with those of you who have struggled long and hard with few rainbows and even less sunny days. Life for you as been an uphill battle.

Some people need to have someone to say, I love you, and I support you. Let us make an effort to understand the despair, weariness, and distress they are going through. When a person's soul contains more scars than life, they feel the side effects of dying from within. We must have compassion, pray faithfully for those adjusted to the darkness, and empathize with their emotions for more significant support for their wellbeing.

Everyone hurts. Everyone has been hurt by someone and everyone has hurt someone. It takes a great deal of strength and integrity to admit when you are wrong. Feeding the urge to hurt others because you have been hurt only weakens your resolve to heal and creates more pain and suffering. If you learn to forgive yourself and others, you gain the strength of empathy and power of compassion. When you intentionally inflict pain on others because your heart is broken, you only cause more heartbreak. If you have to hurt other people in order to feel powerful, you are an extremely weak individual. But inside the realization of this weakness lies the key to true power. Once you acknowledge that you have been wrong and make a legitimate effort to make things right, you begin to shed the false skin of ego and step into your authentic self. That is where your real strength and power lies.

"Everyone hurts. Everyone has been hurt by someone and everyone has hurt someone. It takes a great deal of strength and integrity to admit when you are wrong. Feeding the urge to hurt others because you have been hurt only weakens your resolve to heal and creates more pain and suffering. If you learn to forgive yourself and others, you gain the strength of empathy and power of compassion. When you intentionally inflict pain on others because your heart is broken, you only cause more heartbreak. If you have to hurt other people in order to feel powerful, you are an extremely weak individual. But inside the realization of this weakness lies the key to true power. Once you acknowledge that you have been wrong and make a legitimate effort to make things right, you begin to shed the false skin of ego and step into your authentic self. That is where your real strength and power lies.

Any man filled with empathy is capable of gaining valuable insights on the human condition through the suffering of others. You do not need to suffer to know suffering, but you need empathy first to identify and feel the suffering of others around you.

Empathy nurtures wisdom. Apathy cultivates ignorance.

...the law of empathy, by which he could, by his will, transfer himself into an object or a work of art, and thus inflence the outer world. He did not feel redeemed by the work he did. He did not seek redemption. He sought to see what others did not, the projection of his imagination.

Empathy is the ability to step outside of your own bubble and into the bubbles of other people. Empathy is the ability that allows us to be useful creatures on this planet; without empathy, we are a waste of oxygen in this world. Without empathy, we are lower than animals. Empathy is the ability that allows us the perception of things around us, outside of ourselves; so a person without empathy is a limited human being, someone who will only live half of a life.

Selalu ada saat ketika kita tidak sempat bertanya kepada sepasang kaki sendiri kenapa tidak mau berhenti sejak mengawali pengembaraan agar kita bisa memandang sekeliling dan bertahan semampu kita untuk tidak melepaskan air mata menjelma sungai tempat berlayar tukang perahu yang mungkin saja bisa memberi tahu kita, Ke san, Saudara, ke sana.

Faith keeps our ships moving, while empathy and the memories of our experiences lead to wisdom.

Our bodies have five senses: touch, smell, taste, sight, hearing. But not to be overlooked are the senses of our souls: intuition, peace, foresight, trust, empathy. The differences between people lie in their use of these senses; most people don't know anything about the inner senses while a few people rely on them just as they rely on their physical senses, and in fact probably even more.

Without doubt there is a higher energy that is always leading us and guiding us. The popular idea of God though is a human invention. It has been created by the creators and marketers of religion to control a large mass of people easily. Which is why we are always raised to be God-fearing. But why would the creator want to scare us? Creation is benevolent, compassionate, loving and empathetic. Every aspect of creation oozes and personifies these qualities. So, treating your God as your friend is a great approach. At the end of the day, the higher energy powering the Universe is also powering us and keeping us alive. Being friends with that energy, trusting that energy to lead you, guide you, is a simple, uncomplicated, way to live.

Among all the creatures of creation, the Gods favor us: We are the only ones who can empathize with their problems.

The scriptures present a God who delights in genocide, rape, slavery, and the execution of nonconformists, and for millennia those writings were used to rationalize the massacre of infidels, the ownership of women, the beating of children, dominion over animals, and the persecution of heretics and homosexuals. Humanitarian reforms such as the elimination of cruel punishment, the dissemination of empathy-inducing novels, and the abolition of slavery were met with fierce opposition in their time by ecclesiastical authorities and their apologists. The elevation of parochial values to the realm of the sacred is a license to dismiss other people's interests, and an imperative to reject the possibility of compromise.