I would amend this saying, perhaps, to: "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by a lack of empathy." How hard is it for you to envision how other people feel? If you can't imagine how someone feels, then it's hard to imagine how you can hurt them (or offend them, etc.)
I'm not saying that you need to walk around trying to not offend people (sometimes it's just going to happen). But if you do offend someone and are surprised by it (or accused of being malicious), think about it. Is someone being over-sensitive or were you being stupid?
This happens a lot with e-mail. It's very easy to offend someone using email because there's no facial expressions (okay, there's smiley faces, but...), there's no tone of voice, and there's no one-to-one give-and-take. Once words are put into writing it's very hard to mitigate their meaning.
A friend told me about being at a swimming pool one day. Two teenaged girls started to fight -- kicking, screaming, pulling hair, pushing under the water fighting. Turns out one girl (girl A) told Girl B that Girl B was rude and not very nice to be around. So Girl B proceeded to try to drown Girl A. Girl A didn't just volunteer this info: Girl B had demanded to know why she (Girl B) had few friends. When Girl A told her, Girl B pitched a fit.
Well, duh.
Look at your life. Think about it. For better or worse, we have to get along with people. We can do without people in our lives, but they do intersect now and then.
Are the intersections going the way you want?
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