This article addresses the issues of human compassion and the capacity for dialogue in clinical and socio-political contexts. Taking its cue from Martha Nussbaum's recent explorations of compassion, this work argues against the classical psychoanalytic account of human nature that is rooted in the ideas of Hobbes, Nietzsche, and Freud. Instead, a view of human sociality and analytic interaction that expands on the works of Kohut and continental philosophers and analysts, particularly Martin Buber, Ludwig Binswanger, and Emmanuel Levinas, is developed. This work is interested in demonstrating the relevance of a “dialogical stance” that accounts for the Other as a unique person, not a generalized Other. It is suggested that compassion and dialogue are both grounded in our fundamental situatedness with the Other. Compassion is the attitude, and dialogue is the capacity, that we bring to human engagement, whether in the clinical domain or beyond.