Science Quote by Maxwell Maltz

Maltz writes empathy like an engineer’s checklist: stop, think, account for variables. Coming from a mid-century “scientist” better known as a plastic surgeon turned self-help guru, the line carries the era’s faith that inner life can be methodically retrained. Empathy isn’t presented as a spontaneous moral impulse; it’s “trouble,” a deliberate intervention against our default setting of self-absorption. The verbs matter: stop and think. He’s prescribing a mental brake pedal, a pause that turns social friction into something you can manage.

The subtext is quietly transactional, in a way that’s both pragmatic and revealing. “Think more of what the other fellow wants” isn’t just kindness; it’s strategy. In the postwar American world of salesmanship, corporate culture, and “human relations,” understanding others’ desires is social power. Maltz dresses that power in soft language about feelings, but the emphasis on viewpoints, desires, and needs frames people as interpretable systems. Learn the inputs, predict the outputs, get better outcomes.

The intent is also corrective: a nudge away from moralizing and toward perspective-taking as a skill. By listing feelings alongside viewpoints and needs, he collapses emotion and logic into one domain you can study. That’s why the line works: it flatters the reader’s rational self-image while asking for a behavioral shift. Empathy becomes less a saintly trait than a disciplined habit, available to anyone willing to do the “trouble” of attention.