quotations about pity
It is only at first that pity, like morphine, is a solace to the invalid, a remedy, a drug, but unless you know the correct dosage and when to stop, it becomes a virulent poison. The first few injections do good, they soothe, they deaden the pain. But the devil of it is that the organism, the body, just like the soul, has an uncanny capacity for adaptation. Just as the nervous system cries out for more and more morphine, so do the emotions cry out for more and more pity, in the end more than one can give. Inevitably there comes a moment when one has to say 'no', and then one must not mind the other person's hating one more for this ultimate refusal than if one had never helped him at all.
STEFAN ZWEIG
Beware of Pity
Pity is like a swamp. The longer we stand in the muck, the more we stink.
NANCY HULL-MAST
Our Best Days
The heart of pity is the mortal helping the mortal.
CAROL T. OLSON
The Life of Illness
Pity is an emotion equally unpleasant to the bestower as to the recipient.
BOLESLAW PRUS
The Doll
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Richard III
Isn't it a pity
Now, isn't it a shame
How we break each other's hearts
And cause each other pain
How we take each other's love
Without thinking anymore
Forgetting to give back
Isn't it a pity
GEORGE HARRISON
"Isn't It a Pity"
When you visualized a man or woman carefully, you could always begin to feel pity -- that was a quality God's image carried with it. When you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate. Hate was just a failure of imagination.
GRAHAM GREENE
The Power and the Glory
More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.
GEORGE ELIOT
The Mill on the Floss
A tear dries quickly when it is shed for troubles of others.
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
attributed, Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists
Pity is based in self love; it is benevolence towards those in sorrow, and its root is in a likeness to ourselves.
HENRY LEE IRWIN
American Catholic Quarterly, vol. 47
As I took my leave of her, I caught a gleam of hate and rage in her eyes that made me shudder. We parted enemies. She would fain have crushed me out of existence; and for my own part, I felt pity for her, and for some natures pity is the deadliest of insults.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gobseck
When Man evolved Pity, he did a queer thing--deprived himself of the power of living life as it is without wishing it to become something different.
JOHN GALSWORTHY
The Life and Letters of John Galsworthy
Those who do not complain are never pitied.
JANE AUSTEN
Pride and Prejudice
Pity the laden one; this wandering woe
May visit you and me.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
A pity beyond all telling
Is hid in the heart of love.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
The Rose
Such is the pure movement of nature prior to all reflection. Such is the force of natural pity.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
"Dialectical Theories of Human Nature"
Pity is for this life, pity is the worm
inside the meat, pity is the meat, pity
is the shaking pencil, pity is the shaking voice--
not enough money, not enough love--pity
for all of us--it is our grace, walking
down the ramp or on the moving sidewalk,
sitting in a chair, reading the paper, pity,
turning a leaf to the light, arranging a thorn.
GERALD STERN
"Arranging a Thorn"
I think self-pity is OK for a while but it has to turn to compassion. There's a big difference between having compassion for yourself and self-pity. Self-pity will keep you stuck ... first and foremost you need to forgive yourself.
DON BAKER
"Shape I'm in: Don Baker, musician and actor", Irish Examiner, April 30, 2016
Even your pity is like a blast of wind and the words you speak would strip a tree of its blossoms.
TULASIDASA
The Ramayana
Pity is fear which has been mediated by a certain distance--and by a certain closeness. We do not feel pity for ourselves or for those so close to us as to be parts of ourselves; we feel pity only for others. On the other hand, we do not feel pity for misfortune pure and simple; we do not feel pity for men qua men. We feel pity for unfortunate men who are like ourselves, because then we imagine ourselves in the place of the other.
JAMES M. REDFIELD
Nature and Culture in the Iliad