75 Empowering Positive Empath Quotes And Sayings

On a scale of 1 – 10, how would you rate the world’s ability to listen to and understand the feelings and emotions of others?

As time goes on, the world feels more and more divided on pretty much everything. This has made it harder and harder for us all to slow down and listen to and feel each other’s experiences alongside one another.

That’s why I have put together this collection of empowering positive empath quotes and sayings. Expressing empathy isn’t always easy – especially in a world that demands inward focus on your own success and your own struggles. But focusing on developing empathy for others is one of the keys to stronger and deeper relationships.

As a deeply feeling person and a parent raising children in this divided world, I am very passionate about encouraging empathy. That’s why I am excited to share this list of positive empath quotes with you!

What is Empathy?

Empathy is the ability to understand and share in the emotions and feelings of others. When you have empathy for someone else, you understand their perspectives and the unique experiences that they have. 

One common way to describe empathy is thinking about how it would feel to be “in someone else’s shoes”. This is obviously figurative language, but the idea behind expressing empathy is that you are able to understand others’ emotions, and see the world from their point of view. 

If you are a highly sensitive person, you may find that empathy comes more naturally to you. People who sense and understand the emotions of people around them easily are sometimes called ’empaths’. 

While being empathetic is arguably a very positive trait, managing and navigating a sensitivity to the emotions of others can both be unique challenges for empaths. Struggling with boundaries, self-care, and overwhelm are all common for highly sensitive people.

If this describes you, read on for quotes that will empower you to balance your people pleasing tendencies with your own self care!

Why is Empathy Important?

Empathy is important for so many reasons. I have always believed that the world would be a much different place if we all just slowed down and took the time to think about and acknowledge how other people are feeling.

Just think about a conflict that you have experienced recently in your daily routine. How different would your day be if everyone was a little bit more empathetic?

Empathy is important for understanding, communicating with, and connecting with other people on a deeper level. When we have empathy for others, it is easier to use active listening to engage fully with the other person. Rather than just hearing the words that they speak, empathy means also understanding the underlying message, emotions, and intent behind what is being said.

A world that prioritizes empathy would have leaders who understand their team members’ concerns, motivations, and challenges in order to make informed decisions that inspire. Conflict resolution would be easier if we all considered each others’ viewpoints in order to find common ground and find solutions that consider everyone’s needs.

My goal is to share a list of positive empath quotes that inspire you to strengthen and deepen your relationships so that the people in your life feel understood and supported.

Positive Empath Quotes To Empower

If you are new to the idea of empathy, these positive empath quotes will help you improve your communication and active listening skills, while inspiring you to look at life through the eyes of someone else.

If you are a highly sensitive person, these positive empath quotes will help you practice mindfulness, build up the courage to set boundaries, and develop strong self-care routines in order to manage your sensitivity and maintain your own emotional balance.

1. “Empathy is about standing in someone else’s shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place.” – Daniel H. Pink
2.  “Highly sensitive people are too often perceived as weaklings or damaged goods. To feel intensely is not a symptom of weakness, it is the trademark of the truly alive and compassionate. It is not the empath who is broken, it is society that has become dysfunctional and emotionally disabled. There is no shame in expressing your authentic feelings. Those who are at times described as being a ‘hot mess’ or having ‘too many issues’ are the very fabric of what keeps the dream alive for a more caring, humane world. Never be ashamed to let your tears shine a light in this world.” – Anthon St. Maarten
3. “Sensitive people care when the world doesn’t because we understand waiting to be rescued and no one shows up. We have rescued ourselves, so many times that we have become self-taught in the art of compassion for those forgotten.” – Shannon L. Alder
4. “Create boundaries. Honor your limits. Say no. Take a break. Let go. Stay grounded. Nurture your body. Love your vulnerability. And if all else fails, breathe deeply.” – Aletheia Luna

5. “Many people confuse empaths for weak people who are nothing but scared. The opposite is true. When surrounded by positive energy they flourish into lovely creatures that are so much fun to hang around.” – Katya Ki.
6. “If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.” – Daniel Goleman
7. “Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It’s the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else’s pain is as meaningful as your own.” – Barbara Kingsolver
8. “Sometimes all a person wants is an empathetic ear; all he or she needs is to talk it out. Just offering a listening ear and an understanding heart for his or her suffering can be a big comfort.” – Roy T. Bennett
9. “Never underestimate the empowered empath. Our kindness and compassion is too often mistaken for weakness or naivety, while we are in fact highly calibrated human lie detectors…and fearless warriors for truth and justice.” – Anthon St. Maarten
10. “The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.” – Bill Bullard
11. “Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself. We must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike.” – Maya Angelou
12. “The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy, we can all sense a mysterious connection to each other.” – Meryl Streep
13. “The sad thing that many of us empaths don’t realize is that often our desire to heal others is a disguised cry for help for our own healing. Because many of us weren’t taught how to value or nurture ourselves at a young age, we tend to unconsciously seek out our own healing in the healing of others.” – Mateo Sol
14. “Empaths have to be careful not to internalize others’ feelings, as this can cause them to feel anxious, sad, or even depressed. It can leave the empath feeling drained or exhausted. They must learn to set boundaries so as not to let toxic people drain them dry.” – Donna G. Bourgeois
15. “Empaths feel more deeply, more intensely, and more persistently than those around us. We even feel what other people are afraid to feel within themselves.” – Mateo Sol
16. “Empaths have often been labeled as ‘overly sensitive’ and told to ‘get a thicker skin.’ As children and adults, we are shamed for our sensitivities rather than supported. But at this point in my life, I wouldn’t give up being an empath for anything. It lets me sense the secrets of the universe and know passion beyond my wildest dreams.” – Judith Orloff
17. “The Empath is often said to have such a great degree of empathy that they can literally feel what others feel, and thus intuitively know many of the yearnings, sensitivities, tastes and even thought patterns of the people they’re around.” – Aletheia Luna
18. “An empath hones in on the emotions of a person. Having Psychic abilities focuses on the communication of the soul. Not to be mistaken for a gut feeling-Instinct. Gut Instinct is the internal mechanism for survival.” – Serena Jade
19. “Why is sensitivity perceived as being dangerous? When we’re sensitive, we feel things we were taught not to feel. When we’re sensitive, we are completely open to attack. When we’re sensitive, we are awake and in touch with our hearts – and this can be very threatening to the status quo indeed.” – Aletheia Luna
20. “The nature of humanity, its essence, is to feel another’s pain as one’s own, and to act to take that pain away. There is a nobility in compassion, a beauty in empathy, a grace in forgiveness.” – John Connolly

21. “Dear empath: You are a being of immense depth, wisdom, and compassion. You are a pioneer and trailblazer of humanity, a model for others on how to be sensitive and powerful. All the strength and love you need is already within you, waiting to be discovered.” – Mateo Sol
22. “Empathy speaks to us in those silent moments, away from our wounded ego and our wondering heart, in those empty spaces where questions run riot like lost and rejected soldiers… it tells us that each soul is worthy, valued, loved, and honored and we only ever need to face our own shadows, our own pain… and to be our own mirror.” – Christine Evangelou
23. “Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.” – Andrew Boyd
24. “As an empath, it’s vital that you learn how to hold space for your emotions, even the most painful ones. By anchoring yourself in your breath, you can learn how to witness the emotional energy of others within you, without attaching yourself to these sensations.” – Mateo Sol
25. “One of the greatest advantages of being an empath is that experiencing a spiritual awakening is virtually inevitable. In other words, spiritually awakening seems to be written into our DNA.” – Aletheia Luna
26. “For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.” – Milan Kundera
27. “Sensitivity isn’t being wimpy. It’s about being so painfully aware that a flea landing on a dog is like a sonic boom. I enjoy a lot of mystery.” – Jeff Buckley
28. “An empath is capable of taking on the grief of another in order to lessen their suffering. In order to not be consumed with pain, an empath should have an outlet for that pain lest they lose themselves in feeling for others.” – Donna Lynn Hope
29. “I understand now that I’m not a mess but a deeply feeling person in a messy world. I explain that now, when someone asks me why I cry so often, for the same reason I laugh so often – because I’m paying attention.” – Glennon Doyle Melton
30. “I am an empath – Watching certain types of movies can become unbearable. The energy of TV and Radio can be maddening. I know your feelings better than you do. I know when you lie. I crave solitude. I need order or I can’t think straight. Complete strangers tell me their life story. – I am a healer” – Sandra Cooze

Short Empathy Quotes

31. “A focus on empathy is just what is needed to make the world a better place for all animals, humans, and nonhuman alike.” – Marc Bekoff
32. “I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.” – Maya Angelou
33. “I always think that if you look at anyone in detail, you will have empathy for them because you recognize them as a human being, no matter what they’ve done.” – Andrea Arnold
34. “Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.” – Mohsin Hamid
35. “All empaths can feel if someone is genuine or not. Unaware empaths often disregard the red flags. Empowered empaths listen to their intuition right away.” – Jane Lightworker
36. “The highest form of knowledge is empathy.” – Bill Bullard
37. “I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.” – Walt Whitman
38. “Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.” – Oprah Winfrey
39. “The struggle of my life created empathy – I could relate to pain, being abandoned, having people not love me.” – Oprah Winfrey
40. “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” – Mahatma Gandhi
41. “I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.” – Roger Ebert
42. “Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing.” – Marshall B. Rosenberg
43. “As empaths, our high level of sensitivity means that we are prone to feeling like eternal outsiders who are in the world but not quite of the world.” – Aletheia Luna
44. “Empathy means both understanding others on their own terms and bringing them within the orbit of one’s own experience.” – Jacob A. Belzen
45. “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eye for an instant?” – Henry David Thoreau

46. “When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.” – Susan Sarandon
47. “Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It’s the impetus for creating change.” – Max Carver
48. “Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.” – Emily Post
49. “Being an empath is a huge asset when you learn to manage it.” – Judith Orloff
50. “There’s nothing that inspires that deep sense of belonging like shared empathy!” – Brené Brown
51. “I’m a passionate person; a lot is going on underneath my carousel of blazers: a cauldron of sensitivity and emotion.” – Sue Perkins
52. “The opposite of anger is not calmness, its empathy.” – Mehmet Oz
53. “All advocacy is, at its core, an exercise in empathy.” – Samantha Power
54. “If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.” – Dolly Parton
55. “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” – Epictetus
56. “Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing.” – Marshall B. Rosenberg
57. “You should not judge; you should understand.” – Ernest Hemingway
58. “Sometimes it takes only one act of kindness and caring to change a person’s life.” – Jackie Chan
59. “I care. I care about it all. It takes too much energy not to care.” – Lorraine Hansberry
60. “Empathy fuels connection. Sympathy drives disconnection.” – Brené Brown

Positive Empathy Quotes For Work

61. “When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.” – Stephen Covey
62. “Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn.” – Alice Miller
63. “Learning to stand in somebody else’s shoes, to see through their eyes, that’s how peace begins. And it’s up to you to make that  happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.” – Barack Obama
64. “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” – Leo Buscaglia
65. “You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.” – John Steinbeck
66. “If we could look into each other’s heart and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.” – Marvin J. Ashton
67. “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” – Albert Einstein
68. “Emotional empathy is what motivates us to help others. “ – Brian Goldman
69. “Empathetic presence involves listening to someone’s pain with what I call the five A’s: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing.” – David Richo
70. “Empathy is an important and valuable skill to have in many aspects in life. Not only does it contribute to strong bonds and general trust, but it allows us to gain insight of the emotions and thoughts of other people. In a sense, it offers you a chance to experience life the way someone else does.” – Tuan Luu
71. “Empathy is about standing in someone else’s shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place.” – Daniel H. Pink
72. “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 his angle as well as your own.” – Henry Ford
73. “This capacity for empathy leads to a genuine encounter — we have to progress toward this culture of encounter — in which heart speaks to heart.” – Pope Francis
74. “Empathy depends not only on one’s ability to identify someone else’s emotions but also on one’s capacity to put oneself in the other person’s place and to experience an appropriate emotional response.” – Charles G. Morris
75. “If you aren’t humble, whatever empathy you claim is false and probably results from some arrogance or the desire to control. But true empathy is rooted in humility and the understanding that there are many people with as much to contribute in life as you.” – Anand Mahindra

Using Positive Empath Quotes

The way that you choose to use these positive empath quotes will depend on your familiarity with empathy. 

Empathy isn’t something that comes naturally to us all – and that’s okay! If you are new to the idea, but are still here reading positive empath quotes, that means you are ready to help make the world more patient and accepting place.

If you are a deeply feeling person who is used to feeling deep empathy for others, my hope is that this list inspires you to also extend that empathy to yourself. It’s important to remember that while your ability to deeply understand and empathize with others is a wonderful trait, it’s equally important to show the same level of compassion and understanding toward yourself.

Don’t forget to share this post with your friends and family on social media! If you know a highly sensitive person who could use positive empath quotes, this post could be just what they need!

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