Pity Quotes

“All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously.”

“My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”

“Don't pity this sinful world!Just pity those who made it so!”

“Given a choice, it seems like pity would be easier to bear than mockery, but that's not true. Mockery hardens defenses; pity slips through, finds the softest places you have, and slices to the bone. Pity will break you, every time.”

“Pity. What a useless emotion when you don't act on it. Pity is supposed to trigger compassion.”

“Don't feel pity for those who will feel disappointed because you have scored! You were trained not to entertain a pity party but to excel in a winning game!”

“Such is the pure movement of nature prior to all reflection. Such is the force of natural pity, which the most depraved mores still have difficulty destroying, since everyday one sees in our theaters someone affected and weeping at the ills of some unfortunate person, and who, were he in the tyrant's place, would intensify the torments of his enemy still more; [like the bloodthirsty Sulla, so sensitive to ills he had not caused, or like Alexander of Pherae, who did not dare attend the performance of any tragedy, for fear of being seen weeping with Andromache and Priam, and yet who listened impassively to the cries of so many citizens who were killed everyday on his orders. Nature, in giving men tears, bears witness that she gave the human race the softest hearts.] Mandeville has a clear awareness that, with all their mores, men would never have been anything but monsters, if nature had not given them pity to aid their reason; but he has not seen that from this quality alone flow all the social virtues that he wants to deny in men. In fact, what are generosity, mercy, and humanity, if not pity applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to the human species in general. Benevolence and even friendship are, properly understood, the products of a constant pity fixed on a particular object; for is desiring that someone not suffer anything but desiring that he be happy?”

“When you marry a woman out of pity, then its a pity that you'll send her away very soon.”

“Take a drink because you pity yourself, and then the drink pities you and has a drink, and then two good drinks get together and that calls for drinks all around.”