Pity Quotes

• If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

  Francis of Assisi

  Religious, Peace, Men

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• One day, I just thought, if you see a bird with a broken leg, you really have the urge to do something about it and help the bird, then at the same time you go to a restaurant and eat a chicken or something. It doesn't make any sense.

  Patrik Baboumian

  Sympathy, Compassion, Bodybuilding

  "Vegan strongman shoulders 550 kg — a record, perhaps — at vegetarian food fest" by Jessica Mcdiarmid, www.thestar.com. September 8, 2013.

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• Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.

  Samuel Johnson

  Children, Men, Compassion

  "Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales".

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• Our human compassion binds us the one to the other - not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.

  Nelson Mandela

  Future, Compassion, Suffering

  Nelson Mandela (2012). “Notes to the Future: Words of Wisdom”, p.84, Simon and Schuster

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• Ice-cream is exquisite - what a pity it isn't illegal.

  Voltaire

  Food, Ice Cream, Cooking

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• Self pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.

  John Gardner

  Reality, Self, Giving

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• Pity makes suffering contagious.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Suffering, Contagious

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.349, Penguin

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• Pity costs nothing, and it ain't worth nothing.

  Josh Billings

  Cost

  Josh Billings (1874). “Josh Billings' Wit and Humor”, p.164

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• Friends should be very delicate and careful in administering pity as medicine, when enemies use the same article as poison.

  John Frederick Boyes

  Medicine, Enemy, Poison

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• What pity is it That we can die, but once to serve our country.

  Joseph Addison

  Country, Patriotic, Patriotism

  Cato act 4, sc. 4 (1713) See Nathan Hale 1

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• Where mercy, love, and pity dwell, there God is dwelling too.

  William Blake

  Love, Dwelling, House

  William Blake (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of William Blake (Illustrated)”, p.893, Delphi Classics

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• It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Lovely, Self Pity, Get Up

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• We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Sympathy, Philosophy, Philosophical

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• The recognition of pain and fear in others give rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.

  Dean Koontz

  Pain, Giving, Humanity

  Dean Koontz (2007). “Velocity: A Novel”, p.331, Bantam

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• Pity speaks to grief more sweetly than a band of instruments.

  Bryan Procter

  Grief, Band, Literature

  Bryan Waller Procter (1857). “Dramatic Scenes ; with Other Poems Now First Printed”, p.218

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• Anger and hate against one we love steels our hearts, but contempt or pity leaves us silent and ashamed.

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Hate, Anger, Heart

  Edgar Rice Burroughs (2008). “Tarzan of the Apes”, p.162, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.

  Wilfred Owen

  War, Poetry Is, Concerned

  Poems (1963 ed.) preface

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• Being Lutheran, Mother believed that self-pity is a deadly sin and so is nostalgia, and she had no time for either

  Garrison Keillor

  Mother, Self, Nostalgia

  Garrison Keillor (2014). “The Keillor Reader”, p.28, Penguin

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• If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards.

  Samuel Johnson

  Hands, Doubt, Mind

  In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 3, p. 11 (3 April 1776)

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• Humane sentiments are baseless, mad, and improper; they are incredibly feeble; never do they withstand the gainsaying passions, never do they resist bare necessity.

  Marquis de Sade

  Passion, Mad, Sentiments

  marquis de Sade (1988). “Juliette”, Grove Press

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• If it weren't the problem of politics for me, it would be another. And yet, sometimes it's so difficult. And I feel sorry for myself. And then hate myself for this feeling of self-pity.

  Julie Nixon Eisenhower

  Sorry, Hate, Self

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• My subject is war, and the pity of war.

  Wilfred Owen

  War, Subjects

  Preface (written 1918)

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• Self-pity is... a sinkhole from which no rescuing hand can drag you because you have chosen to sink.

  Elisabeth Elliot

  Self, Hands, Sinkholes

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• Pity is not natural to man. Children always are cruel. Savages are always cruel.

  Samuel Johnson

  Children, Men, Savages

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• We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.

  Samuel Johnson

  Feelings, Wish, May

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