Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.
Barbara KingsolverRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Empathy involves recognizing the shared human experience of pain and victory, opposing selfishness.
In this quote, Barbara Kingsolver emphasizes the importance of empathy as a moral and spiritual principle that counters meanness of spirit. She suggests that true understanding of our collective suffering and triumphs fosters compassion, allowing us to appreciate the significance of others' experiences just as much as our own. This recognition not only encourages kindness but also highlights the interconnectedness of humanity amid conflicts and struggles.
Themes
EmpathyUnderstandingCompassionPainHumanity
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about social justice, one could use this quote to emphasize the need for empathy in addressing inequality.
More from Barbara Kingsolver
All quotes →Children can be your heartache. But that doesn't matter, you have to go on and have them . . . it works out.
Barbara KingsolverRead
I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.
Barbara KingsolverRead
I did it to win love, and to prove myself capable. Not to move mountains. In my opinions, mountains don't move. They only look changed when you look down on them from great height.
Barbara KingsolverRead
Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.
Barbara KingsolverRead
It's frightening when things you love appear suddenly changed from what you have always known.
Barbara KingsolverRead
Similar quotes
Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is passed in sleep.
Lord ByronRead
Nanny's philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down.
Terry PratchettRead
Do you ever suddenly find it strange to be yourself?
Clarice LispectorRead
I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one
Bill MoyersRead
If democracy brings an undemocratic group to power, is that a victory for democracy?
Richard EngelRead
If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask... with nothing beneath it?
Jodi PicoultRead