Sympathy (compassion) Quotes

You come down here to console me. That is charming of you. You find me consoled, and you are furious. How like a sympathetic person!

Human sympathy has its limits.

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Similarly we are seldom sorry for those who need and crave our pity—we reserve this for those who, by other means, make us exercise the abstract function of pity.

Fathers. Mothers. With all their caring and attention. They will fuck you up, every time.

I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust.

I can sympathise with everything, except suffering. I cannot sympathise with that. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.

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Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Lord Henry Wotton

Grief

Misery

Empathy's very important. Telling the cold hard truth, even when it hurts, sometimes is the most empathetic thing we can do.

— How she must have loved him, to give up everything. The duke, the castle, the horses and the hounds.
— And for what? Two weeks of shameless passion.
— Two glorious weeks!
— It was a terrible scandal, and it had to lead to a terrible end.
— But it was worth it. What woman could ask for more than to die together with her lover? Buried under an avalanche, locked in each other's arms forever.
— Nonsense. They'll thaw out this summer, and that will be it.
— Papa, how can you be so cruel? Don't you have any sympathy?
— I do. My sympathy is with the duke. And the horses and the hounds.

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Love in the Afternoon (1957)

Empathy can be an invaluable motivator, that truly connects the physician with their patient.

I didn’t know…what warmth felt like. What kindness was. And more than anything else… I couldn’t understand what love was.

I know it's probably hard to have sympathy for the poor, tortured billionaire.

Alas! it is a fearful thing
To feel another's guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
For the blood we had not spilt.

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