"The discoveries of how we can grow and the insights we need to have really come from the inside out. To have genuine empathy, not as a make-nice tool but as an understanding, is essential to the next step"
About this Quote
The sharpest turn comes with her redefinition of empathy. She anticipates the contemporary misuse - empathy as social lubricant, conflict-avoidance, or corporate branding - and cuts it off: “not as a make-nice tool.” That phrase carries cultural context without naming it: the rise of “empathic” management talk, the weaponization of niceness, the way emotional intelligence gets reduced to a technique for compliance. Sun wants empathy stripped of its PR function and restored as perception: “an understanding.”
“Essential to the next step” frames empathy as infrastructural, not decorative. The subtext is that personal growth has consequences; without genuine understanding of others, the next step becomes a higher-powered version of the same self-centeredness. Her intent isn’t sentimental. It’s procedural: if you want durable change - in relationships, communities, even leadership - empathy can’t be a strategy. It has to be a way of seeing, rooted in honest self-knowledge, or the whole project collapses into performance.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Improvement |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Sun, Patricia. (2026, January 16). The discoveries of how we can grow and the insights we need to have really come from the inside out. To have genuine empathy, not as a make-nice tool but as an understanding, is essential to the next step. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-discoveries-of-how-we-can-grow-and-the-82474/
Chicago Style
Sun, Patricia. "The discoveries of how we can grow and the insights we need to have really come from the inside out. To have genuine empathy, not as a make-nice tool but as an understanding, is essential to the next step." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-discoveries-of-how-we-can-grow-and-the-82474/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The discoveries of how we can grow and the insights we need to have really come from the inside out. To have genuine empathy, not as a make-nice tool but as an understanding, is essential to the next step." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-discoveries-of-how-we-can-grow-and-the-82474/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
