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About this quote

What does it mean?
Empathy is a blessing that protects innocence because people who feel others' pain are less likely to cause it.
In plain terms
Feeling others' pain stops you from hurting them.
What can you take from it?
Empathy prevents harm.

Where it applies

  • conflict resolution
  • raising children
  • ethics

Putting it to work

  • cultivate empathy
  • listen to others

Questions to consider

  • Can empathy make you suffer?
  • Is kindness natural?

Another view

Feeling pain doesn't always stop harmful actions.

More from Samuel Richardson

  1. Those who have least to do are generally the most busy people in the world.

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  2. There hardly can be a greater difference between any two men, than there too often is, between the same man, a lover and a husband.

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  3. Women are so much in love with compliments that rather than want them, they will compliment one another, yet mean no more by it than the men do.

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