Many of the most important advances in human history have been advances in empathy, the awareness, at least among some white people, that other ethnic groups have the same feelings, capacities and dreams as they do; the awareness among some men that their way of exercising power over women was illegitimate and caused genuine suffering; the awareness among many heterosexuals that gay love is exactly the same as heterosexual love. Empathy makes progress possible and each time we expand human empathy, we open the universe a little wider.
Johann Hari, The Value of Attention.