Noun
Feeling corresponding to that which another feels; the quality of being affected by the affection of another, with feelings correspondent in kind, if not in degree; fellow-feeling.
An agreement of affections or inclinations, or a conformity of natural temperament, which causes persons to be pleased, or in accord, with one another; as, there is perfect sympathy between them.
Kindness of feeling toward one who suffers; pity; commiseration; compassion.
The reciprocal influence exercised by the various organs or parts of the body on one another, as manifested in the transmission of a disease by unknown means from one organ to another quite remote, or in the influence exerted by a diseased condition of one part on another part or organ, as in the vomiting produced by a tumor of the brain.
That relation which exists between different persons by which one of them produces in the others a state or condition like that of himself. This is shown in the tendency to yawn which a person often feels on seeing another yawn, or the strong inclination to become hysteric experienced by many women on seeing another person suffering with hysteria.
A tendency of inanimate things to unite, or to act on each other; as, the sympathy between the loadstone and iron.
Similarity of function, use office, or the like.
Source: Webster's dictionaryOur sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery. Edward Gibbon
It is by a wise economy of nature that those who suffer without change, and whom no one can help, become uninteresting. Yet so it may happen that those who need sympathy the most often attract it the least. F. H. Bradley
Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest. George Eliot
Wealth can give legs to the cripple, beauty to the ugly, and sympathy to tears. Armenian Proverb
Sympathy is a little medicine to soothe the ache in another's heart. Jewish Proverb
Sympathy doesn't provide food, but it makes hunger more endurable. Jewish Proverb