Sympathy is simply feeling sorry for someone in a situation, vs knowing how they feel because you've been there as well. Bonus: Relevance of this question. Part of almost every call center I have come to learn is expressing empathy towards the customer. We do this naturally just as human beings or so I would believe we do. Apparently not and now there is a standard in this industry where we must learn "empathy statements" and it is part of our score when our calls are graded. Example (listen for this if you ever call in somewhere that's a call center) "I understand your frustration." That line is condescending and patronizing in my personal opinion but apparently it works for the vast majority. So they make us say something along those lines every call. I'll save my rant for another time but yes, this is actually a thing.