Depends what you're doing. I can tell you this isn't true in healthcare. Humans can only give so much before it negatively impacts them. I suffered from compassion fatigue recently and it was pretty awful. Things got better once I detached more. Too much empathy will dilute it to misery. Apathy probably is worse in general, but we need some to thrive, in my opinion. Interestingly, I watched an interview with a therapist who is an actual sociopath and her advice is what got me through the compassion fatigue. I'm not a sociopath, but adopting the safer bits has helped tremendously.