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What does it mean to be an empath? How do you behave if you are someone with a high level of empathy?
Truth be told, not everyone can be empathetic. While some people naturally display feelings for others, some need a lot of courage and understanding before they can relate to people.
This means that being an empath is a gift. After all it’s not every day that you meet someone who can deeply understand your pain and suffering. It’s not often that you find someone who can put themself in your shoes.
In this article, we share with you 45 empath quotes that can help you show your sensitive personality. It’s not bad to be highly sensitive. It takes someone as brave and sensitive as you are to comfort the world and those who live in it.
But before we proceed, let’s check out some of the benefits of reading empath quotes.
(Side note: Want to use these quotes to make a lasting change to your life? Then check out and recite these 57 affirmations for success).
What You Will Learn
Why Read Empath Quotes?
The world would be a rather scary place without empaths. Without people who can feel and understand the emotions of others, chaos and disorder might spread quickly.
We need more people who can feel and understand the suffering of others. We also need people to learn the value of putting themselves in other people’s shoes.
While empathy is a gift that some are born with, it can also be learned. This is where these empath quotes come in. Through them, it becomes easier for people to understand what it means to be empathetic.
These quotes can also help empaths realize that what they are feeling is perfectly normal. There are moments when they might feel that they are too involved in another person’s problem. This is not out of the ordinary for people with a lot of empathy. But while it may seem difficult at first, we believe that everyone has the ability to develop and improve their empathy towards others. With the help of these quotes, we hope to help you become part of the empathy movement.
- “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.” – Anthon St. Maarten
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.” – Maya Angelou
- “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
- “The highest form of knowledge is empathy.” – Bill Bullard
- “Empaths are born that way, but being empathic is something all, or most of us can learn. They put others in front of themselves as long as it’s doable. Harmony in any given circumstance is something they strive to create. They are being affected by others’ emotions and energies—so balance is super-important to them. They want to make the desires and wishes come true for the ones around them as often as possible. They want to motivate and inspire others to grow as well.” – Kristine Einang
“Empaths are born that way, but being empathic is something all, or most of us can learn. They put others in front of themselves as long as it’s doable. Harmony in any given circumstance is something they strive to create. They are being affected by others’ emotions and energies—so balance is super-important to them. They want to make the desires and wishes come true for the ones around them as often as possible. They want to motivate and inspire others to grow as well.” – Kristine Einang
- “Empaths are absorbers, not observers. When you just observe, you are no longer an empath but just a sympath.” – Monika Chhetri
- “Empaths may hesitate to save themselves first because they think that doing so is selfish, which is not the case. If you’re an empath, know how important it is to take care of yourself first in order to be able to help others. Sometimes there is only so much you can do for others; you might even be doing everyone a disservice by stepping over boundaries.” – Catherine Chea
- “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
- “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
- “An empath is an emotional sponge. They absorb the stress and also the positive emotions into their own bodies from other people.” – Dr. Judity Orloff
- “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
- “Empathy is simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of you’re not alone.” – Brené Brown
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.” – Alan Watts
- “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
- “The very best thing we can do for others isn’t soaking up their pain, it is actually holding space for them. Holding space for a person means giving them the room to grieve or vent while still maintaining our own boundaries.” – Mateo Sol
- “Empathy means understanding others on their own terms and bringing them into the orbit of one’s own experience.” – Jacob A. Belzen
“Empathy means understanding others on their own terms and bringing them into the orbit of one’s own experience.” – Jacob A. Belzen
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “There is no reconciliation until you recognize the dignity of the other until you see their view—you have to enter into the pain of the people. You’ve got to feel their need.” – John M. Perkins
- “To embrace suffering culminates in greater empathy, the capacity to feel what it is like for the other to suffer, which is the ground for unsentimental compassion and love.” – Stephen Batchelor
- “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
- “Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person.” – William Fritz
- “No beauty shines brighter than that of a good heart.” – Shanina Shaik
- “Empathy isn’t just listening, it’s asking the questions whose answers need to be listened to. Empathy requires inquiry as much as imagination. Empathy requires knowing you know nothing. Empathy means acknowledging a horizon of context that extends perpetually beyond what you can see.” – Leslie Jamison
- “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
- “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
- “We can influence a person and actually change a person’s thinking by the words we use. We can show kindness and empathy by the phrases we use and the actions we take.” – Catherine Pulsifer
- “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
- “Remember that the greatest thing about being empathetic is that when someone accomplishes something awesome, you will feel just as awesome as if you accomplished it yourself.” – Michael Unks
- “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
- “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
- “If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.” – Eleonora Duse
- “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
- “There’s beauty everywhere. Amazing things are happening everywhere, you just have to be able to open your eyes and witness it. Some days, that’s harder than others.” – Sarah McLachlan
- “Learning to give empathy to myself and others as often as I can each day has rendered astounding benefits… Empathy leads to compassion and compassion to forgiveness and connection.” – Judith Hanson Lasater
Final Words on Empath Quotes
It’s not always easy to be empathetic, especially when you have your own problems to deal with. But it doesn’t hurt to learn this skill and become a more understanding companion. We all have our own challenges to face, but these challenges can be a lot easier to deal with if we have someone in our corner who can feel what we feel.
We hope that these quotes can help you become a more empathetic person. If you are already an empath, we hope they will inspire you to continue pursuing a life that is well-lived and satisfying.
Finally, if you want to use these quotes to make a lasting change to your life, then check out and recite these 57 affirmations for success.
