Leslie Jamison Quotes about Empathy

Empathy isn’t just something that happens to us — a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain — it’s also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves.

Empathy isn’t just something that happens to us — a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain — it’s also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves.

Leslie Jamison

Choices, Empathy, Brain

Leslie Jamison (2014). “The Empathy Exams: Essays”, p.23, Granta Books

When bad things happened to other people, I imagined them happening to me. I didn’t know if this was empathy or theft.

Leslie Jamison

People, Empathy, Theft

Leslie Jamison (2014). “The Empathy Exams: Essays”, p.20, Granta Books

Empathy requires knowing that you know nothing.

Leslie Jamison

Knowing, Empathy, Knows

I think of empathy as a set of cumulative effects, ideally - that it can be a force shaping your habits, shaping where you put your attention and then - if you're hard on yourself, in good ways - pushing you to translate that attention into action, on whatever scale.

Leslie Jamison

Thinking, Empathy, Attention

Source: therumpus.net

Empathy is cloaked in our actions - as in, we might be experiencing empathy but not realize it's empathy.

Leslie Jamison

Empathy, Our Actions, Might

Source: therumpus.net

I needed people to deliver my feelings back to me in a form that was legible. Which is a superlative kind of empathy to seek, or to supply: an empathy that rearticulates more clearly what it's shown.

Leslie Jamison

People, Empathy, Feelings

Leslie Jamison (2014). “The Empathy Exams: Essays”, p.16, Granta Books