quotations about sympathy
Of a truth, men are mystically united: a mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one.
THOMAS CARLYLE
Essays
Who can tell what metals the gods use in forging the subtle bond which we call sympathy, which we might as well call love.
KATE CHOPIN
The Awakening
I ask Thee for a thankful love,
Through constant watching wise,
To meet the glad with joyful smiles,
And to wipe the weeping eyes,
And a heart at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathize.
ANNA LAETITIA WARING
Father I know that all my Life: Hymns and Meditations
Never elated while one man's oppress'd;
Never dejected while another's blessed.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Man
Sympathy just doesn't mean
That much to me
Compassion's not
The fashion in my mind
And if you're looking for
A shoulder to cry on
Don't turn your head my way
'Cause I'd rather have
My music any day
URIAH HEEP
"Sympathy"
It is said that the wounded deer sheds tears; but it belongs to man only, to "weep with them that weep," and by sympathy to divide another's sorrows, and double another's joys.
THOMAS GUTHRIE
Gems of Illustration from the Sermons and Other Writings of Thomas Guthrie
The man who melts
With social sympathy, though not allied,
Is of more worth than a thousand kinsmen.
EURIPIDES
Orestes
Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow
For other's good, and melt at other's woe.
HOMER
The Odyssey
Sympathy is value perception, but simultaneously, a living with, a participation in the life lived by a man seen as a value. This participation is an event within Being which reveals a level or mode of being. The openness involved not only reveals a deeper level of being in the one opening towards the other, but also reveals the other man in his unique and valued being.
A. R. LUTHER
Persons in Love: A Study of Max Scheler's Wesen und Formen der Sympathie
Our souls sit close and silently within,
And their own web from their own entrails spin;
And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such,
That, spider like, we feel the tenderest touch.
JOHN DRYDEN
Mariage à la Mode
For if sympathy is seen as an aspect of human intelligence, derived from an emotional experience, which is in turn based on evaluating and appraising objects, one can deduce that it is a state which can be changed, developed, augmented, or manipulated.
SOPHIE RATCLIFFE
On Sympathy
He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
The Deserted Village
A man's sympathy extends just so far as his wisdom reaches, and no further; and a man only grows wiser as he grows tenderer and more compassionate. To narrow one's sympathy is to narrow one's heart, and so to darken and embitter one's life.
JAMES ALLEN
Byways to Blessedness
There are some men and women whose sympathies for others' pains are as quick as the consciousness of their own; who feel a personal relief from suffering when others are relieved; and to whose ear the song of the captive ransomed from guilt is sweeter than a thousand-voiced chorus, pealing their own praises. These are the god-like.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Sympathy is when you feel sorry for someone. Compassion is when you do something about it.
JONAH GOLDBERG
"The Dangers of Empathy", National Review, May 5, 2017
The greatest pleasures of which the human mind is susceptible are the pleasures of consciousness and sympathy.
WILLIAM GODWIN
The Enquirer
For I no sooner in my heart divin'd,
My heart, which by a secret harmony
Still moves with thine, joined in connection sweet.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
To weep and lament over misfortunes, when it draws the sympathizing tear, brings no light recompense.
AESCHYLUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
One advantage gained by calamities, is to know how to sympathize with others in the like troubles.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Sympathy is a fellow-feeling with any in trouble; it can only be fully developed where like experience exists.
A. RITCHIE
attributed, Day's Collacon