Quotations
 

“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us “universe”, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” —Albert Einstein

The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own.  A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasure of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination. - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy." - Gustav M. Gilbert, German-speaking American prison psychologist at Spandau prison in Berlin, where Nazi war crimes defendants were held, 1945

"We will never be able to inhabit the conscious state of another person. Our subjectivity is an inviolable, unenterable state. On the other hand, there's much in the new neurology to suggest that empathetic links have also been evolutionarily selected for. The brain has these amazing circuits, mirror neuron circuits, which are actively firing and activating motor and visual circuits simply as simulations of other people's activities. That suggests the brain itself is manufacturing empathy circuits that allow us to participate in rich and complicated ways in the sensibilities, actions and motivations of other people." - Richard Powers

“Only curiosity about the fate of others, the ability to put ourselves in their shoes, and the will to enter their world through the magic of imagination, creates this shock of recognition. Without this empathy there can be no genuine dialogue, and we as individuals and nations will remain isolated and alien, segregated and fragmented.” (Azar Nafisi)

“If you could actually stand in someone else's shoes to hear what they hear, see what they see, and feel what they feel, you would honestly wonder what planet they live on, and be totally blown away by how different their "reality" is from yours. You'd also never, in a million years, be quick to judge again.” Author unknown

Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn. Alice Miller

Moral imagination is the capacity to empathize with others, i.e., not just to feel for oneself, but to feel with and for others. This is something that education ought to cultivate and that citizens ought to bring to politics. -McCollough 1992

“Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.”  Karl Menninger, Prominent Psychiatrist

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..." Fritz William - Ethical Humanist

 “Empathy is forgetting oneself in the joys and sorrows of another, so much so that you actually feel that the joy or sorrow experienced by another is your own joy and sorrow. Empathy involves complete identification with another.” Dada Vaswani, head of the Sadhu Vaswani Mission

 “Empathy is putting yourself in another’s shoes to find out what exactly that person is feeling or going through at the given time. It basically refers to being at a common wavelength with someone.” Deepa Kodikal,

“When an individual feels for another’s pain, as a superior towards an inferior, or feels sorry for a condition one cannot even imagine oneself in – that is the feeling of pity. We pity a blind person, for we don’t know what blindness is. However, when we rise higher, look at the other as an equal, can probably imagine ourselves in his condition, and feel a strong bond with him, then that pity converts itself into sympathy. When, however, we identify so totally with another that he suffers, and we feel the pain; he laughs, and joy suffuses our being; he is excited, and our heart leaps in exhilaration; then we are close to the condition that is called empathy.” Chandrika, author  Atma Siddhi

Listening
When someone really hears you without passing judgment on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good. . . . When I have been listened to and when I have been heard, I am able to re-perceive my world in a new way and to go on. It is astonishing how elements which seem insoluble become soluble when someone listens. How confusions which seem irremediable turn into relatively clear flowing streams when one is heard.  Carl Rogers
 

If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you`ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it. - Atticus Finch  -To Kill A Mockingbird

Answers.com/topic/empathy 
Many and extensive definitions. In other languages, sign language, etc.

Trying to observe the slow shift from self-centeredness to empathy is like trying to watch grass grow. — Neal Maxwell.

"Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow for other's good, and melt at other's woe." - Homer

Empathy.se  Swedish Empathy Center (great resource on empathy)

“Empathy… is the experience of foreign consciousness in general”
Edith Stein   (1989/1917, p. 11). Source: Stein, E. (1989). On the problem of empathy. Washington: ICS Publications. (Original work published 1917)
 

  "Empathy in broadest sense refers to the reactions of one individual to the observed experiences of another"
Mark H. Davis:(Davis, 1983, p. 113). Source: Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 113-126.
 

 "The ability to experience and understand what others feel without confusion between oneself and others"
 Jean Decety: (Decety & Lamm, 2006, p. 1146). Source: Decety, J., & Lamm, C. (2006). Human empathy through the lens of social neuroscience. The Scientific World Journal, 6, 1146-1163.
 

 “Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person.”
Heinz Kohut: (1984, p. 82). Source: Kohut, H. (1984). How does analysis cure? Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
 

 “Other-oriented feelings congruent with the perceived welfare of another person.”
C. D. Batson:Source: Batson, C. D. (1994). Why act for the public good? Four answers. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 603-610, p. 606.
 

“An affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another’s emotional state or condition, and that is similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel”
Nancy Eisenberg: (2002, p. 135). Source: Eisenberg, N. (2002). Empathy-related emotional responses, altruism, and their socialization In R. J. Davidson & A. Harrington (Eds.). Visions of compassion: Western scientists and Tibetan Buddhists examine human nature (p. 131-164). London: Oxford University Press.
 

“An affective response more appropriate to another’s situation than one’s own”
Martin Hoffman: (1987, p. 48). Source: Hoffman, M. L. (1987). The contribution of empathy to justice and moral judgment. In N. Eisenberg & J. Strayer (Eds.), Empathy and its development (p. 47-80). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 

“Empathy involves the inner experience of sharing in and comprehending the momentary psychological state of another person”
(1959, p. 345). Source: Roy Schafer:  Schafer, R. (1959). Generative empathy in the treatment situation. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 28, 342-373.
 

 “The capacity to know emotionally what another is experiencing from within the frame of reference of that other person, the capacity to sample the feelings of another or to put oneself in another’s shoes”.
D. M. Berger: Source: Berger, D. M. (1987). Clinical empathy. Northvale: Jason Aronson, Inc.
 

 “It is a way of perceiving and knowing and a way of being connected to other consciousnesses by which individual human beings gain access to the inner worlds of other individuals and to the workings of relationships, and whole ecologies, of which they are but parts.”
M. O´Hara:  (1997, p. 303-304). Source: O’Hara, M. (1997). Relational empathy: Beyond modernist egocentrism to postmodern holistic contextualism. In A. C. Bohart & L. S. Greenberg (Eds.), Empathy reconsidered: New directions in psychotherapy (p. 295-319). Baltimore: United Book Press.
 

“To empathize means to share, to experience the feelings of another person.”
R. R. Greenson:  (1960, p. 418). Source: Greenson, R. R. (1960). Empathy and its vicissitudes. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 41, 418-424
 

 “To perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person, but without ever losing the “as if” condition. Thus, it means to sense the hurt or the pleasure of another as he senses it and to perceive the causes thereof as he perceives them, but without ever losing the recognition that it is as if I were hurt or pleased and so forth."
Carl Rogers: (1959, p. 210-211)” Source: Rogers, C. R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality and interpersonal relationships, as developed in the client-centered framework. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A study of science, (Vol. 3, p. 184-256). New York: Mc Graw Hill.

Later (1975), Rogers wrote that empathy is a process rather than a state and that it means "entering the private perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it. It involves being sensitive, moment to moment, to the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person, to the fear or rage or tenderness or confusion or what ever, that he/she is experiencing. It means temporarily living in his/her life, moving about in it delicately without making judgments, sensing meanings of which he/she is scarcely aware, but not trying to uncover feelings of which the person is totally unaware, since this would be too threatening. It includes communicating your sensing of his/her world as you look with fresh and unfrightened eyes at elements of which the individual is fearful. It means frequently checking with him/her as to the accuracy of your sensings, and being guided by the responses you receive. You are a confident companion to the person in his/her inner world. By pointing to the possible meanings in the flow of his/her experiencing you help the person to focus on this useful type of referent, to experience the meanings more fully, and to move forward in the experiencing. To be with another in this way means that for the time being you lay aside the views and values you hold for yourself in order to enter another’s world without prejudice. In some sense it means that you lay aside yourself and this can only be done by a person who is secure enough in himself that he knows he will not get lost in what may turn out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other, and can comfortably return to his own world when he wishes. Perhaps this description makes clear that being empathic is a complex, demanding, strong yet subtle way of being.”
 (p. 4). Source: Rogers, C. (1975). Empathic: An unappreciated way of beeing. Counseling Psychologist, 5, 2-10.
 

"The ability to infer the specific content of another person's thoughts and feelings"
William Ickes: (1997, s. 3). Source: Ickes, W. (1997). Empathic accuracy. New York: Guilford Press.
 

“Empathy… is the experience of foreign consciousness in general”
Edith Stein: (1989/1917, p. 11). Source: Stein, E. (1989). On the problem of empathy. Washington: ICS Publications. (Original work published 1917)
 

"Empathy in broadest sense refers to the reactions of one individual to the observed experiences of another"
Mark H. Davis:   (Davis, 1983, p. 113). Source: Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 113-126.
 

 "The ability to experience and understand what others feel without confusion between oneself and others"
Jean Decety:  (Decety & Lamm, 2006, p. 1146). Source: Decety, J., & Lamm, C. (2006). Human empathy through the lens of social neuroscience. The Scientific World Journal, 6, 1146-1163.

  “Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person.”
Heinz Kohut:(1984, p. 82). Source: Kohut, H. (1984). How does analysis cure? Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
 

 “Other-oriented feelings congruent with the perceived welfare of another person.”
C. D. Batson: Source: Batson, C. D. (1994). Why act for the public good? Four answers. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 603-610, p. 606.
 

“An affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another’s emotional state or condition, and that is similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel”
Nancy Eisenberg:  (2002, p. 135). Source: Eisenberg, N. (2002). Empathy-related emotional responses, altruism, and their socialization In R. J. Davidson & A. Harrington (Eds.). Visions of compassion: Western scientists and Tibetan Buddhists examine human nature (p. 131-164). London: Oxford University Press.
 

 “An affective response more appropriate to another’s situation than one’s own”
Martin Hoffman: (1987, p. 48). Source: Hoffman, M. L. (1987). The contribution of empathy to justice and moral judgment. In N. Eisenberg & J. Strayer (Eds.), Empathy and its development (p. 47-80). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 

   “Empathy involves the inner experience of sharing in and comprehending the mometary psychological state of another person”
Roy Schafer:(1959, p. 345). Source: Schafer, R. (1959). Generative empathy in the treatment situation. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 28, 342-373.
 

  “The capacity to know emotionally what another is experiencing from within the frame of reference of that other person, the capacity to sample the feelings of another or to put oneself in another’s shoes”.
D. M. Berger:Source: Berger, D. M. (1987). Clinical empathy. Northvale: Jason Aronson, Inc.
 

  “It is a way of perceiving and knowing and a way of being connected to other consciousnesses by which individual human beings gain access to the inner worlds of other individuals and to the workings of relationships, and whole ecologies, of which they are but parts.”
M. O´Hara :(1997, p. 303-304). Source: O’Hara, M. (1997). Relational empathy: Beyond modernist egocentrism to postmodern holistic contextualism. In A. C. Bohart & L. S. Greenberg (Eds.), Empathy reconsidered: New directions in psychotherapy (p. 295-319). Baltimore: United Book Press.
 

 “To empathize means to share, to experience the feelings of another person.”
R. R. Greenson:  (1960, p. 418). Source: Greenson, R. R. (1960). Empathy and its vicissitudes. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 41, 418-424
 

 “To perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person, but without ever losing the “as if” condition. Thus, it means to sense the hurt or the pleasure of another as he senses it and to perceive the causes thereof as he perceives them, but without ever losing the recognition that it is as if I were hurt or pleased and so forth."
Carl Rogers:  (1959, p. 210-211)” Source: Rogers, C. R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality and interpersonal relationships, as developed in the client-centered framework. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A study of science, (Vol. 3, p. 184-256). New York: Mc Graw Hill.

Later (1975), Rogers wrote that empathy is a process rather than a state and that it means "entering the private perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it. It involves being sensitive, moment to moment, to the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person, to the fear or rage or tenderness or confusion or what ever, that he/she is experiencing. It means temporarily living in his/her life, moving about in it delicately without making judgments, sensing meanings of which he/she is scarcely aware, but not trying to uncover feelings of which the person is totally unaware, since this would be too threatening. It includes communicating your sensing of his/her world as you look with fresh and unfrightened eyes at elements of which the individual is fearful. It means frequently checking with him/her as to the accuracy of your sensings, and being guided by the responses you receive. You are a confident companion to the person in his/her inner world. By pointing to the possible meanings in the flow of his/her experiencing you help the person to focus on this useful type of referent, to experience the meanings more fully, and to move forward in the experiencing. To be with another in this way means that for the time being you lay aside the views and values you hold for yourself in order to enter another’s world without prejudice. In some sense it means that you lay aside yourself and this can only be done by a person who is secure enough in himself that he knows he will not get lost in what may turn out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other, and can comfortably return to his own world when he wishes. Perhaps this description makes clear that being empathic is a complex, demanding, strong yet subtle way of being.” (p. 4). Source: Rogers, C. (1975). Empathic: An unappreciated way of being. Counseling Psychologist, 5, 2-10.
 

  "The ability to infer the specific content of another person's thoughts and feelings"
William Ickes:(1997, s. 3). Source: Ickes, W. (1997). Empathic accuracy. New York: Guilford Press.

Freud and the history of empathy
Empathy (Einfühlung) has a long history in aesthetics, psychology and psychoanalysis, and plays a greater role in Freud's thinking than readers of the Standard Edition realise. Coined by Robert Vischer in 1873, Einfühlung originally designates the projection of human feeling on to the natural world. For a quarter of a century the term remains at the centre of psychological aesthetics before Theodor Lipps, a philosopher admired by Freud for 40 years, transfers it to psychology in an attempt to explain how we discover that other people have selves. Freud's conception of Einfühlung, first developed in 'Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious' (1905), remains heavily intellectual throughout his career; he views it as the process that allows us to understand others by putting ourselves in their place. Although the Standard Edition never translates Einfühlung as 'empathy' in a clinical context, Freud regards it as essential for establishing the rapport between patient and analyst that makes interpretation possible. This paper traces the history of Einfühlung from aesthetics and psychology to Freud and his contemporaries."

 Carl Rogers, the humanistic psychologist, defined empathy as follows: “The state of empathy, or being empathic, is to perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person.”

From Compassionate Communication & Empathy0ReadOnline.pdf

John Cunningham, a champion and clarifier of empathy, writes as follows:

Baruch Urieli defines empathy as “interest in and compassion for our fellow human being; it enables us to extend our inner being into that of the other person and directly experience something of his essential nature.“ Surprisingly, the word empathy has only recently entered our language. Originally coined [by Urieli}  in 1912 as a translation for the German word Einfühlung—”to feel into”— Carl Rogers introduced the expression into the wider culture in the 1950s when he used empathy to describe a capacity he saw emerging in the younger generation.

The social aspect of the spiritual life demands that I open myself
to the other, invite him to express himself in me. In this way I am
able to experience his questions of inner development as my own.
Dieter Brüll, The Mysteries of Social Encounters

"When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air."
        Stephen R. Covey (1932 - ____) US "consultant, author" "In ""Webster's Electronic Quotebase,"" ed. Keith Mohler, 1994."

I hope to leave my children a sense of empathy and pity and a will to right social wrongs.
        Anita Roddick (1942 - 2007) English "businesswoman, social reformer" "In ""The Sunday Express,"" 9 Jun 1991."

"Power comes not from the barrel of a gun, but from one's awareness of his or her own cultural strength and the unlimited capacity to empathize with, feel for, care, and love one's brothers and sisters."
        \"Addison Gayle, Jr.\" (1932 - ____) US "educator, critic, author" """The Black Aesthetic,"" 1971."

Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, EMPATHY and understanding. Source Unknown 

The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy. Quote by Meryl Streep

Those who give have all things.
Those who withhold have nothing. Hindu proverb

I'm cursed with empathy. I'm also by nature way too opinionated.  John Shirley

I think empathy is a beautiful thing. I think that's the power of film though. We have one of the most powerful, one of the greatest communicative tools known to man. Michelle Rodriguez

True contentment comes with empathy. Tim Finn

When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.  Susan Sarandon

I think I'm an actor because I have very strong imagination and empathy. I never studied acting, but those two qualities are exactly the qualities that make for an activist.  Susan Sarandon

Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn.  Alice Miller

Anyone who has experienced a certain amount of loss in their life has empathy for those who have experienced loss.  Anderson Cooper

Readers will stay with an author, no matter what the variations in style and genre, as long as they get that sense of story, of character, of empathetic involvement.  Dean Koontz

Without television and mass communication, that knowledge wouldn't exist. So I think it actually has the possibility of turning people into more understanding and more empathetic people. John Warnock
 

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. Terri Apter

Poets have to be sensitive to their audience, but it does not mean that they censor themselves. I realize my audience is diverse. Some will read with empathy and curiosity while others will take offense. John Barton

The discoveries of how we can grow and the insights we need to have really come from the inside out. To have genuine empathy, not as a make-nice tool but as an understanding, is essential to the next step. Patricia Sun

The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy. Meryl Streep

There is also a natural and very, very strong empathy with the underdog, with people who have suffered, people who have been pushed around by foreigners in particular, but also by their own people.  Lakhdar Brahimi

There are many respects in which America, if it can bring itself to act with the magnanimity and the empathy appropriate to its size and power, can be an intelligent example to the world.  J. William Fulbright

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

People who work on the user interface side need to have empathy as a key characteristic. But if you are writing device drivers you don't really need to understand humans so well. Andy Hertzfeld

I'm less interested in slasher, and go more for roles that can affect you on a personal level. I'm interested in human empathy in the movies I see, and in the ones I am a part of. Joshua Leonard

Artlex.com
 Sympathy for another's situation, feelings, and motives. An imaginative projection of one's own feelings to an object or event. Quotations about empathy:

"He who wishes to paint Christ's story must live with Christ."
        Fra Angelico (-1455), Florentine painter of the early Renaissance. Argan, Fra Angelico and His Times, 1955.
 

"As an artist I am . . . attracted by decadence, by those who exhaust their lives in the shallow pursuits of pleasure . . . . Occasionally, I feel that spiritually I participate in all these kinds of lives."  Emil Nolde (1867-1956), German Expressionist painter. Years of Struggle, 1934.

 "Daumier paints with an enormous capacity for absolute empathy; a complete identification of himself with the figures he paints. He sets forth what it feels like to do something; not what somebody looks like doing it."  David Sylvester, The New Statesman, 1963.

"We've reached a point where we are not a very empathetic people, and art without empathy is art without an audience. My basic viewpoint is that without art we're alone."
        Jamake Highwater, interviewed in Art News Magazine, August 1984.

“Empathy...is the experience of foreign consciousness in general”  Edith Stein, 1917/1989, p.11

“Altruism itself depends on a recognition of the reality of other persons, and on the equivalent capacity to regard oneself as merely one individual among many.” Thomas Nagel, 1970/1978, p. 3

The social aspect of the spiritual life demands that I open myself to the other
person, invite him to express himself in me. In this way I am able to experience
his questions of inner development as my own.
Dieter Brüll, The Mysteries of Social Encounters

When man faces man the one attempts to put the other to sleep and the other
continuously wants to maintain his uprightness. But this is, to speak in the
Goethean sense, the archetypal phenomenon of social science... [This
sleeping-into] we may call the social principle, the social impulse of the new
era: we have to live over into the other; we have to dissolve with our soul into
the other. Rudolf Steiner (lecture on 11.10.1919)

Empathy is the only human superpower—it can shrink distance, cut through social and power hierarchies, transcend differences, and provoke political and social change. Elizabeth Thomas

The success of the abolitionist movement lay in its making real for people in Britain and America the slave ship's pervasive and utterly instrumental terror, which was indeed its defining feature. Marcus Rediker

The official directives needn't be explicit to be well understood: Do not let too much empathy move in unauthorized directions. Norman Solomon

Tragically, one of the rarest commodities in our culture is empathy. People are hungry for empathy, They don't know how to ask for it.  Marshall B. Rosenberg,

"During empathy one is simply 'there for' the other individual, when experiencing their own feelings while listening to the other, i.e. during sympathy, the listener pays attention to something about themselves, and is not 'there for' the client." "Consider how you would feel if you sensed that the individual listening to you was getting into their own 'stuff' rather than hearing and reflecting exactly what you were feeling in a moment of need?" (Caruso)

"In empathy one substitutes oneself for the other person; in sympathy one substitutes others for oneself. The object of empathy is understanding. The object of sympathy is the other person's well-being. In sum, empathy is a way of knowing; sympathy is a way of relating." (Wispe)

"Empathy as a complex emotion is different. It requires awareness of the other person’s feelings and of one’s own reactions. The appropriate reaction may not be to cry when another person cries, but to reassure them, or even to leave them alone." (Preston, de Waal)

“Arabic employs a system of root words, where several hundred words can be related back to the root meaning. Sympathy in Arabic comes from the root word ???. It has many meanings but the most common are to bend, to incline, be favorably disposed to, have or feel compassion, awaken affection towards, or close to ones heart. Empathy can be traced back to three root words. The first is ???, demonstrating again that one cannot feel empathy without feeling sympathy also. The second is ???, meaning attach closely, embrace, hug, or associate closely. The third root is ???, meaning to put on a shirt, clothe, wrap in, pass into another body (spirit), or materialize in another body. The third meaning is closest to that of understanding. This implies that a person cannot fully experience another person or object unless they can place themselves into the other person or object and fully understand what it is like to be that person or object.” (Zebuhr)

"If empathy can be conceived as a process that permits a temporary “jumping” out of self to affectively identify with non-self benignly, then compassion may be the emotion that resonates self with non-self to retain the expansions of external horizons."   (Borysenko)

"As in a Russian doll, however, the outer layers always contain an inner core. Instead of evolution having replaced simpler forms of empathy with more advanced ones, the latter are merely elaborations on the former and remain dependent on them. This also means that empathy comes naturally to us. It is not something we only learn later in life, or that is culturally constructed."  (de Wall, from Peacecenter)

"Evolution has produced the requisites for morality: a tendency to develop social norms and enforce them, the capacities of empathy and sympathy, mutual aid and a sense of fairness, the mechanisms of conflict resolution, and so on. Evolution has also produced the unalterable needs and desires of our species: the need of the young for care, a desire for high status, the need to belong to a group, and so forth." (Arnhart)
 

Chinese-word.com
The attribution of one's own feelings to an object.

pronunciation: gan shou