Frans de Waal, an internationally known Dutch-born biologist, challenges us in this excerpt from The Age of Empathy to choose empathy over excessive loyalty to our own nation, group, or religion.
Karla McLaren, an award-winning author and pioneering expert on human relationships, reminds us in this excerpt from The Art of Empathy that each of us has an innate talent for being empathic.
Shirley Hershey Showalter, a religious writer, muses in this excerpt from Blush on ways in which empathy was highly valued and practiced in her childhood Mennonite family.
Jeremy Rifkin, called by the Utne Reader “one of the leading big-picture thinkers of our day,“ shows in this excerpt from The Empathetic Civilization that even during wartime people can have an unrequited desire for companionship with others, including supposed enemies.
Sim Van der Ryn, president of The Ecological Collaborative, shows in this excerpt from Design for an Empathetic World how intimate connection with another person — the deepest form of empathy — depends on intimacy within ourselves.
Roman Krznaric, a founding faculty member of The School of Life in London, shares six habits of highly empathic people in this excerpt from Empathy.
Leslie Jamison, an accomplished fiction writer, observes in this excerpt from The Empathy Exams that empathy needn't simply arise unbidden, but rather it can be intended and still remain genuine.
Arthur P. Ciaramicoli, a psychologist, and Katherine Ketcham, a writer on health and spirituality, reveal in this excerpt from The Power of Empathy ways in which empathy leads to openness and tolerance.
Mary Gordon, a psychologist and author, imagines what a world where children are with empathy and grow up learning to care in this excerpt from Roots of Empathy.
Joanna Macy, an eco-philosopher and spiritual activist, calls out to endangered animals in this excerpt from World as Lover, World as Self, poignantly acknowledging their precious particularity and the gifts we are on the verge of losing.
