Pity

“ Dost thou take pity,—thou?
Thou feel at heart one touch of tenderness!
And see-what weep! Thou weeping! thou the proud one!
Oh wonder! What then are these tears of thine?
Real! And tears of love!
SYLVIA.
Not love, but pity.
DAPHNE.
Pity as surely is love's harbinger,
As lightning is the thunder's. ”

“ New ideas: look here, one new idea, a really beautiful new idea, in our time, is pity. Gerrit, what could be more beautiful and more delightful and newer than pity: genuine pity for all human wretchedness? I feel it myself, even though I never leave my sofa. I feel it myself. But, even as I feel it and never leave my sofa, so the whole world feels the new idea of pity . . . and never leaves its sofa. . . . Lord, my dear chap, there's blood sticking to everything; the world is nothing but mean selfishness and hypocrisy; there's war, injustice and all sorts of rottenness ”

“ Helpless and dumb, with desperate eyes, that see
The terrible beauty of those simple things
My soul disdained when she was proud and free.
And I can only pray: God pity me,
God pity me and give me back my voice! ”

“ Yet you are concerned whether the rest of mankind pity you?—Yes, but I do not deserve to be pitied.—And so you are pained at that? And is the man who is pained worthy of pity?—Yes.—How, then, do you fail to deserve pity after all? By the very emotion which you feel concerning pity you make yourself worthy of pity. ”

“ May thine every deed of mercy be turned to sorrow and to humiliation, thine every act of pity prove a curse to him who receives it, until thou on thy knees art left to sue for pity to a heart that knoweth it not, and findest a deaf ear turned unto thy cry! ”

“ We often accompany pity with so much asperity toward the unfortunate, while stretching out to them a helping hand, — we look upon them with so sour and so severe a countenance, that a simple denial had been less galling to them than a charity so harshly and so unfeelingly bestowed; for the pity which appears affected by our misfortunes, consoles them almost as much as the bounty which relieves them. ”

“ When pity, love, reveals to us the whole universe striving to gain, to preserve, and to enlarge its consciousness, striving more and more to saturate itself with consciousness, feeling the pain of the discords which are produced within it, pity reveals to us the likeness of the whole universe with ourselves ”

“ Her heart was big with pity--pity for that disheartened man whose buoyancy and self-love had been so deeply wounded, pity for those wandering, angry, aimless men and women who might have rested secure in his guardianship; pity for all the hot, misguided hearts of men and women. Pity, too, for the man with the most impetuous heart of them all, who wandered in some foreign land with a woman whose beauty had been his lure and his undoing. Yes, she had been given grace in those days, when she seemed to stand face to face with death, to pity even David and Mary! ”

“ A pity beyond all telling
Is hid in the heart of love:
The folk who are buying and selling,
The clouds on their journey above,
The cold, wet winds ever blowing,
And the shadowy hazel grove
Where mouse-grey waters are flowing
Threaten the head that I love. ”

“ Then, also, the tears caused by this suffering flow abundantly, and without any trouble; the soul is disposed to the most touching emotions of pity, or is full of commiseration and of love; in a word, all misfortunes are the cherished and respected sisters of our misfortune.
On the contrary, if you suffer for an unworthy cause, your heart is drowned in hatred; your concentrated grief resembles dumb fury which shame bridles with a sharp bit that vanity conceals; envy and hatred gnaw you, but your eyes are dry, and the unhappiness of others can alone draw from you a sad and mournful smile. ”

“ Dost stretch forth innocent thy helpless hand,
Shall pitying then protect, when thou art thrown
On the world's waste, unfriended and alone! 10
O hapless Infancy! if aught could move
The hardest heart to pity and to love
'Twere surely found in thee: dim passions mark
Stern manhood's brow, where age impresses dark
The stealing line of sorrow; but thine eye
Wears not distrust, or grief, or perfidy. ”

“ His pity was always costly. It culminated upon Calvary, but it was bleeding all along the road! It was a fellow-feeling with all the pangs and sorrows of the race. And a pity that bleeds is a pity that heals. “In His love and in His pity He redeemed us.”
And the multitude is round about us still, and the people are in peril of fainting by the way. There is the multitude of misfortune, the children of disadvantage, who never seem to have come to their own. And there is the multitude of outcasts, the vast army of publicans and sinners. ”

“ For who is so worthy of our pity, as he who knows not that he is pitiable?—who takes ignorance, dirt, vice, passion, and the wretchedness which vice and passion bring, as all in the day’s work, as he takes the rain and hail, the frost and snow,—as unavoidable necessities of mortal life, for which the only temporary alleviation is—drink? ”

“ No, do not curse him,—pity him instead;
Forgive him!—forgive me! . . God's anodyne
For human hate is pity; and the wine
That makes men wise, forgiveness. I have read
Love's message in love's murder, and I die. ”

“ Mere human feelings of pity, sympathy with my too visible agitation, superadded to something of perhaps reverence for the blighting misery that was now opening its artillery upon me—for misery has a privilege, and everywhere is felt to be a holy thing—had combined to procure for me some attention and some indulgence hitherto. ”

“ The tears of emotion that gush generously forth at the spectacle of suffering humanity—even of frail and faulty humanity—taste so good! Many is the time they have felt the weary weight of this unintelligible world on listening to a sad story or seeing a play, and screwed up melancholy and doleful countenances—maybe pity can be put among the things that can make life, always requiring to be braced up a bit, a trifle more interesting. ”

“ O Holy Virgin, Holy Virgin, have pity on the rickety souls that struggle on so painfully when they are no longer upheld by Thee! Have pity on the bruised souls to whom every effort is painful; on the souls whom nothing can console, to whom everything is affliction! Take pity on the homeless, outcast souls, the wandering souls, unable to settle and dwell with their kind, the tender, budding souls! ”

“ Detraction (and I mean by that, jealousy) is a grief even at another’s enjoying what I had a great inclination for. Pity is a grief at the misery of another who suffers wrongfully; for no one is moved by pity at the punishment of a parricide or of a betrayer of his country. Vexation is a pressing grief. Mourning is a grief at the bitter death of one who was dear to you. Sadness is a grief attended with tears. Tribulation is a painful grief. Sorrow, an excruciating grief. Lamentation, a grief where we loudly bewail ourselves. ”

“ What, have you no regard for a man in misery? Have you no pity, though he cry in bitterness of his soul? Help, help, for the Lord's sake? O, pray for, and pity those wounds and vexations of spirit, which no man feels but he that is thus wounded. ”

“ We are given pain to balance every joy,
We tragic-eyed divinities in dust.
Many the hearts life bleeds with little wounds,
The souls bewildered between God and lust.
We know the way of pity and pity's pain ”

“ Our psychological insight does not amount to very much if it does not recognize that there is a form of pity which enhances the pleasure of cruelty. There may indeed be discovered, when we dig deep enough into the abysses of the soul, an aspect of pity which thrills us with a most delicate sensation of tenderness and yet which remains an aspect of pity by no means incompatible with the fact that we continue the process of causing pain to the object of such tenderness. ”

“ Should the fair one, and the dear one,
⁠The sigh of pity lend,
For human woe that presses low,
⁠A stranger or a friend;
⁠Tears descending, sweetly blending,
⁠As down her cheeks they rove,
⁠Beauty's charms in pity's arms ”

“ And as in response to our inquiry, we receive the look of pity, and the sorrowful shake of the head, it is then, in our deepest agony, amid blinding tears, and hearts almost crushed to despair, we turn to our great Father above, and we ask, why must we part? ”

“ Sunk down in shame too deep for shame's control.
His kind keen eye was light to lighten hope
Where no man else might see life's darkness ope
And pity's touch bring forth from evil good,
Sweet as forgiveness, strong as fatherhood. ”

“ There were numbers of people who would take an opposite view of the question, and who would pity her--not indeed with that pity which is akin to love, but from a feeling springing from a very different source,--a pity which consists in loudly denouncing the cause for compassion, and wondering how the person to be compassionated can endure what has to be gone through. ”

“ Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:
Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self-example mayst thou be denied! ”

“ To this end there must be a certain agreement between this suffering and something that we have already in us. In other words, pity is only possible inasmuch as we can prove or suppose a resemblance between ourselves and the subject that suffers. ”

“ She probably mistook the action for the emotion of shame and despair born of bitter grief; perhaps of terror of the law. It frightened her a little, but pity dominated. She could scarcely endure to do what she must do. ”

“ However pure in its source, it is ineffectual in its result, simply because no one can feel his heart softened by a commiseration which he is wholly unconscious of requiring. The pity that feels with me is, of all things, the most delicious to the heart; the pity that only feels for me, is, perhaps, of all things, the most insulting. ”

“ There's consolation when a friend laments us, but
When a parent grieves, the anguish is too native,
Too much our own to be called pity.
Oh, sir, consider; I was born to die.
'Tis but expanding thought, and life is nothing. ”

“ The most hard-hearted relative would pity a man like you—a good and honest workman overtaken by a sudden calamity, and left without hope or help. Then the moving spectacle of this young and tender child, your only friend and guide, would wring pity from the very stones. But how is it that the master for whom you worked previously to your accident has done nothing for you? ”

“ Would they not be gratified? I hoped they would; their pity would have pained most exquisitely. Still my emotions were not of an ameliorating description; my heart was indurated, and, had I possessed the means, I should have proceeded in the path of destruction. ”

“ I was not I must confess displeased nor a little disappointed to witness the evident emotions of pity and commiseration, which this woeful declaration appeared to excite in their minds: as I had supposed them too much accustomed to witness scenes of misery and distress, to have their feelings much effected by a brief recital of my sufferings and deprivations—but in justice to them I must say, that although a very illiterate, I found them (with a few exceptions) a humane and benevolent people. ”

“ It gives way successively to the feelings of admiration and pity—of admiration, as excited on contemplating the almost incomparable beauty of the captive, its breadth and depth, the harmony of its proportions, as well as the richness and variety of its colours; of pity, as called forth in accordance with our nature,—an unconscious, uncontrollable emotion, which operates with subduing effect on the triumph of the moment. ”

“ So from the same heart that had felt a passionate pity for the victim, compassion flowed out on the transgressor. For where others feel the tragedy of suffering, the pure in heart realize with an infinitely sharper pain the tragedy of guilt. ”

“ There, in fact, they are so much the more inclined to pity, as they have been brought so much nearer to the very fountain of pity, and have a truer knowledge of your sorrows. For that happy home has not lessened, but enlarged their charity. ”

“ The tears which were shed on that day, seemed almost sufficient to wipe away the recollection of those times, in which misery experienced no mitigation; when every one trembling for himself, had no unabsorbed sensation of consoling pity to bestow upon the unfortunate. ”

“ Have you seen a sick animal looking at you pleadingly? Pity is a monster! First one tentacle, then another, and finally one is pulled under and devoured. One should never feel pity. But you were gone. ”

“ Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!" ”

“ But since you have not attained to it, I advise you to cultivate that form of contempt which is called pity. It is perhaps the least difficult—always remembering that you, too, if you are anything, are as pitiful as the rest, yet never expecting any pity for yourself. ”

“ And now, when I am settling down to these reminiscences in late middle age, the most dreadful waking sense of real horror, and the first real touch of human pity, seem to meet each other, and to blend. ”

“ By pity is to be understood mere blind sympathy. The good that we do by this pity with the eyes of the mind shut ought to be done with them open. “He who lives according to the guidance of reason strives as much as possible to repay the hatred, anger, or contempt of others towards himself with love or generosity. ”

“ And such beings sympathize equally with sorrow that grovels and with sorrow that soars. Such beings pity alike the children that are languishing in death, and the children that live only to languish in tears. ”

“ The instruments of torture I believe I could endure, if my spirit was invigorated with the consciousness of a generous purpose; but pity touches upon a nerve that vibrates instantly to the heart, and subdues resistance. ”