Sympathy is about feeling for someone: seeing their distress and realising that they are suffering. Compassion means to act on this, to ease their suffering. Empathy is about experiencing those feelings for yourself, as if you were that person, through the power of imagination.
Source: What is Empathy? @ Skills You Need: Helping you develop Life skills
Photo: The kindness of strangers by Darinka Maja under Creative Commons license
