The Empathy Symbol stands for:
reaching out to the “other” and then opening up to truly understand each other.
Use the empathy symbol to indicate your support for a world in which we all can get along.
Empathy: The first step to peace in our families, schools, communities, nations, world
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Why Empathy? Why Now?
Heinz Kohut defined empathy as "the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person.” We think that's what the world needs today. As the cultural wars rage — Judeo/Christians vs. Muslims, immigrants vs. native-borns, Red States vs. Blue States — what we all need is to walk in each others' shoes, to empathize with the other’s position, situation, upbringing, life experiences and feelings. Empathy leads to respect and caring for each other, and that is the sure path to peace.
Empathy Commitment
We’ve heard about people getting the empathy symbol as a tattoo in Texas, Germany,
and Australia. We appreciate this permanent commitment to spreading
the message about the importance of empathy! Check out the ways people have put the empathy symbol permanently in their lives and out front to the world. If you don’t want to go as
far as a tattoo, though, consider using the empathy symbol as your
signature under your name on your e-mail. You can get a print-ready version from our Materials page. Have you got other ideas? Please share them with us and we’ll put you in our Empathy Symbol Gallery.Empathy News
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Featured Empathy Promoter
Michele Norris, the National Public Radio host, was starting a book tour for her memoir, which explored racial secrets.
Sensing a change in the atmosphere after the election of the first black president, and searching for a new way to engage and listen,
Norris printed 200 postcards asking people to express their thoughts on race in six words. Thousands of submissions have poured in from the
web, in the mail, by hand or via Twitter. Spend some time scrolling through The Race Card Wall. Click through to read some of the stories
behind the six-word submissions. Send in your own six-word essay. Share this with your friends. Join the conversation.
Visit The Race Card Project at: theracecardproject.com/
See our previously featured Empathy Promoters.
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Using the Empathy Symbol
The empathy symbol is licensed under a Creative Commons license. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. You may copy, distribute and transmit the material on this site and the empathy symbol as long as you attribute the work to www.EmpathySymbol.com. You may not use this work for commercial purposes without additional license. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work , without additional license. You may seek additional license to do so by contacting us.
We are seeking partners to help spread the Empathy Symbol, and the value of empathy in our world. If you are interested in creating t-shirts or other clothing, jewelry, coffee mugs, or other items using the empathy symbol, please contact us.
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Read Our Blog
- Join the conversation about empathy and the empathy symbol at
Center for Building a Culture of Empathy
This fantastic website is a one-stop resource for all things about empathy: articles, talks, videos, discussions, science, history, interviews, and much more. You can also join causes that support empathy toward various groups. Please check it out at: cultureofempathy.com.
