Is there a dark side to empathy?

The heart that never felt the loss of some loved one is incapable of human sympathy unless it is naturally alive to humanity's needs. 

Draw to the surface the seeds of love and kindness and let them ripen in the light of truth, the wisdom that finds strength in sorrow and pain, and you will bless every pain, sorrow and care you endured on earth, for you will come here prepared to reap as you have sown and the harvest will be so abundant that you will long to shout aloud the glorious truth that out of evil some good must come to the reaper who sows no tares of ill-will.

—Robert G. Ingersoll in Spirit