Findings
Over the course of our learning and grantmaking, we've come across extraordinary research, quotes, images, articles, and insights by people and organizations all over the world. This is a collection of inspirational resources that drive our work.
"Books are sometimes windows, offering views of the world that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror."
"This is why we need storytelling. You don’t need to come into physical or electronic contact outside your ideological comfort zone...With storytelling, we can experience the thrill of “the other,” yet remain safe."
Sometimes I walk down the street and I look at all the people I'm passing and I think, damn, all these stories walking right by me.
Researchers have found links between self-reported empathy and life satisfaction, as well as positive interactions with other people.
Exercises that prompt us to consider the perspective of one member of a group can lead us to not only feel for that person, but also to generalize those feelings toward the group as a whole. In that way, empathy can have a positive influence on attitudes toward stigmatized groups.
“One of the greatest dignities of humankind is that each successive generation is invested in the welfare of each new generation.”
This study examines associations between state-level empathy, prosocial behavior, and antisocial behavior in the United States.
"What empathy does is that it forces you, it compels you, to imagine the lives of other people and to see other people just as human as you are. And if you’re able to do that then I think that you’re more likely to want to live at peace with them. You’re less likely to want to fight wars, and you’re more likely to want them to have the social privileges that you have."
"If we were really to see one another as brothers and sisters, there would be no basis for division, cheating and exploitation among us. Therefore it’s important to promote the idea of the oneness of humanity, that in being human we are all the same."
"We need a new mind-set about nature, one that centers on empathy, compassion, and being proactive."
Studies demonstrate that children who interact with animals have higher levels of self esteem, greater empathy, and better social skills.
"Is it possible that we can extend our empathy to the entire human race as an extended family? And to our fellow creatures, and to the biosphere as our common community? If it's possible to imagine that, we might be able to save our species and our planet."
"Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself."
"Empathy is the only human superpower - it can shrink distance, cut through social and power hierarchies, transcend differences, and provoke political and social change."
"My heart has learned to glow for others’ good."
History museums, attractions and destinations around the country are emphasizing the civil rights story in an age of renewed activism around race and equality.
"A place is a story, and stories are geography, and empathy is first of all an act of imagination, a storyteller's art, and then a way of traveling from here to there."
"Books are a bit like flight simulators in which you're learning to fly, but you're not actually flying...you're able to practice your social skills by becoming involved in a character and following their emotions."
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
"The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story."
CapRadio brought wildly diverse residents face-to-face through intimate story circles to talk about housing, hear one another and envision the way forward. It’s an experiment in deep listening, radical hospitality and bridge building.
"Too often, we exist in echo chambers and see each other as monoliths: one-sided stereotypes who can be reduced to a single word or phrase. Instead, we want to go beneath the headlines, to see each other as real people with real struggles, real fears, real hopes, and real dreams."
"Exposure to unexpected – and sometimes unwelcome – news and information is crucial to democratic processes. Traditional mass media...nudges society together, back towards a middle ground. Personal media is the opposite, a center-fleeing centrifugal force that inexorably pulls us away from the center."
Fostering Empathy Through Museums, by Elif M. Gokcigdem, features fifteen case studies with take-aways and lessons learned by illustrating a spectrum of approaches in the way museums employ empathy.
I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.
"Have courageous conversations with difficult people. People who do not see the world the way you see the world."
– Theo E.J. Wilson
Empathy has been defined in the scientific journals as ‘I feel with you‘, as distinct from compassion, which has been defined as ‘I feel for you’.
