Top 30 Sympathy Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

— Mitch Albom

Also featured in: Relationship Quotes, Loss Quotes, Beautiful Quotes, Grief Quotes

2. “Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.”

— Swami Vivekananda

Also featured in: Life Philosophy Quotes, Spirituality Quotes, Helping Others Quotes, Quotes About Humanity

3. “Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person. You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose: to help him or her to empty his heart.”

— Nhat Hanh

Also featured in: Care Quotes, Empathy Quotes, Mindfulness Quotes, Helping Others Quotes, Peace Quotes

4. “No man is an island, entire of itself.”

— John Donne

Also featured in: Relationship Quotes, Human Nature Quotes, Quotes About Humanity, Quotes About People

5. “I call him religious who understands the suffering of others.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

Also featured in: Empathy Quotes, Peace Quotes, Caring Quotes, Suffering Quotes

6. “When you're struggling with something, look at all the people around you and realize that every single person you see is struggling with something, and to them, it's just as hard as what you're going through.”

— Nicholas Sparks

Also featured in: Empathy Quotes, Suffering Quotes

7. “We hurt people by being too busy. Too busy to notice their needs. Too busy to drop that note of comfort or encouragement or assurance of love. Too busy to listen when someone needs to talk. Too busy to care.”

— Billy Graham

Also featured in: Care Quotes, Empathy Quotes

8. “Before you abuse, criticize, and accuse, walk a mile in my shoes.”

— Elvis Presley

Also featured in: Empathy Quotes

9. “You pray for the hungry. Then you feed them. That’s how prayer works.”

— Pope Francis

Also featured in: Morality Quotes, Impact Quotes, Helping Others Quotes, Quotes About Acting

10. “Don’t judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.”

— Sharon Creech

Also featured in: Experience Quotes, Empathy Quotes, Human Nature Quotes

11. “I will not say, do not weep, for not all tears are an evil.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

Also featured in: Loss Quotes, Suffering Quotes, Sadness Quotes

12. “Helping people in need is a good and essential part of my life, a kind of destiny.”

— Princess Diana

Also featured in: Empathy Quotes, Service Quotes, Humanism Quotes, Helping Others Quotes

13. “There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark.”

— Helen Keller

Also featured in: Empathy Quotes, Grateful Quotes, Helping Others Quotes

14. “Compassion is the basis of morality.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

15. “Success in dealing with people depends on sympathetic grasp of the other person’s viewpoint.”

— Dale Carnegie

Also featured in: Empathy Quotes

16. “To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

Also featured in: Empathy Quotes, Conscience Quotes

17. “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”

— C. S. Lewis

Also featured in: Sadness Quotes, Grief Quotes

18. “People think they know me, but they don’t. Not really. Actually, I am one of the loneliest people on this earth. I cry sometimes, because it hurts. It does. To be honest, I guess you could say that it hurts to be me.”

— Michael Jackson

Also featured in: Sorrow Quotes, Depression Quotes, Hurt Quotes, Lonely Quotes

19. “Be gentle with human hearts, for when they are forced into something, they go blind.”

— Imam Ali

20. “Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity.”

— Pope Francis

Also featured in: Humanism Quotes

21. “A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.”

— Charles H. Spurgeon

Also featured in: Character Quotes

22. “The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.”

— Kalu Ndukwe Kalu

Also featured in: Quotes About Giving

23. “When you serve others, when you make somebody else’s life better, when you lift up people, when you help heal those that are hurting, not only are they being blessed, but you’re being blessed.”

— Joel Osteen

Also featured in: Service Quotes, Helping Others Quotes, Helping Quotes, Hurt Quotes

24. “Life is short and we never have enough time for the hearts of those who travel the way with us. O, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.”

— Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Also featured in: Friends Quotes

25. “In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.”

— Fred Rogers

Also featured in: Caring Quotes

26. “You just need to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and then see how they feel and then you will understand why they are reacting or why they are behaving the way that they are behaving. We need to be fair.”

— Navid Negahban

27. “My dear heart, never think you are better than others. Listen to their sorrows with compassion. If you want peace, don’t harbor bad thoughts, do not gossip and don’t teach what you do not know.”

— Rumi

28. “The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into habit. And the habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care. And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings.”

— Buddha

Also featured in: Morality Quotes, Enlightenment Quotes, Buddhist Quotes, Compassion Quotes

29. “Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds.”

— Louisa May Alcott

30. “It was in my heart to help a little because I was helped much.”

— Khalil Gibran

Also featured in: Helping Quotes, Quotes About Giving

31. “Love everybody, serve everybody.”

— Abdu'l-Bahá

Also featured in: Humanism Quotes, Helping Others Quotes

32. “Beneath the skin, beyond the differing features and into the true heart of being, fundamentally, we are more alike, my friend, than we are unalike.”

— Maya Angelou

Also featured in: Human Nature Quotes, Humanism Quotes, Quotes About Humanity, Diversity Quotes