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.

While eschewing emotion - and its companion vulnerability - Obama should be careful not to sacrifice empathy the 'I feel your pain' connection that sustained Clinton. This connection is the shorthand people use to measure their leaders' intentions. If people believe you're on their side they will trust your decisions.

I think we are living in selfish times. I'm the first one to say that I'm the most selfish. We live in the so-called 'first world ' and we may be first in a lot of things like technology but we are behind in empathy.

You have to have sympathy for and an empathy with a character in order to play them.

Like many people most Libertarians feel empathy and sympathy for less fortunate people. But they know you can't have perfection in a world of limited resources.

I've always thought of acting as more of an exercise in empathy which is not to be confused with sympathy. You're trying to get inside a certain emotional reality or motivational reality and try to figure out what that's about so you can represent it.

Obama often criticizes policies that place the interests of the powerful ahead of the powerless. But through his administration's support of abortion rights Obama shows his lack of empathy for society's most powerless.

We shall listen not lecture learn not threaten. We will enhance our safety by earning the respect of others and showing respect for them. In short our foreign policy will rest on the traditional American values of restraint and empathy not on military might.

You can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental mind-shaping driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

When a mother quarrels with a daughter she has a double dose of unhappiness hers from the conflict and empathy with her daughter's from the conflict with her. Throughout her life a mother retains this special need to maintain a good relationship with her daughter.