Pitiful Quotes - Page 2

God help us! it is a foolish little thing, this human life, at the best; and it is half ridiculous and half pitiful to see what importance we ascribe to it, and to its little ornaments and distinctions.

Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey

Life, Ornaments, Half

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Pity the man who inherits a million and isn't a millionaire. Here's what would be pitiful, if your income grew and you didn't.

Jim Rohn

Success, Men, Discipline

FaceBook post by Jim Rohn from Sep 13, 2015

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What children don't understand, and can't understand until they grow up some, is how much the whole fabric and process of human society depends on everybody agreeing to ignore, most of the time, the fact that all of us are, most of the time, inadequate, incompetent, pitiful, and, in fact, naked to our enemies. None of us really has very much in the way of spiritual, moral clothing. We dress ourselves in rags. And we agree to say nothing about it. To a very large extent, it is human charity that clothes us.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Spiritual, Children, Growing Up

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Believers must persevere in prayer that they may see clearly their own pitiful state and understand the indwelling, working, and demands of the Holy Spirit.

Watchman Nee

Prayer, Demand, May

Watchman Nee (2009). “The Spiritual Man”, p.314, Christian Fellowship Publishers

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When a man has fulfilled all four of these requisites-to be wide awake, to have fear, respect, and absolute assurance-there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his actions lose the blundering quality of the acts of a fool. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.

Carlos Castaneda

Respect, Courage, Regret

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Remote from human passions, remote even from the pitiful facts of nature, the generations have gradually created an ordered cosmos [mathematics], where pure thought can dwell in its natural home.

Bertrand Russell

Passion, Home, Cosmos

Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.94, Bertrand Russell

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[T]he democratic principle of "one man, one vote," viewed against a background of voting masses numbering several millions, only serves to demonstrate the pitiful helplessness of the inarticulate individual, who functions at the polls as the smallest indivisible arithmetical (and not always algebraic) unit. He acts in total anonymity, secrecy and legal irresponsibility.

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Men, Voting, Principles

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Is it worthwhile that we jostle a brother, Bearing his load on the rough road of life? Is it worthwhile that we jeer at each other, In blackness of heart - that we war to the knife? God pity us all in our pitiful strife

Joaquin Miller

Brother, War, Heart

Joaquin Miller (1872). “Joaquin: Et Al”, p.49

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My "heart". Does that pitiful organ still represent anything? It lies motionless in my chest, pumping no blood, serving no purpose, and yet my feelings still seem to originate inside its cold walls. My muted sadness, my vague longing, my rare flickers of joy. They pool in the center of my chest and seep out of there, diluted and faint, but real.

Isaac Marion

Wall, Lying, Real

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As destruction goes, the monster said behind him, this is all remarkably pitiful.

Patrick Ness

Monsters, Destruction, Said

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I'll take you to Mickey D's," said Sean. "I'll buy you a hamburger." Annie was not thrilled. Sean's offer did not compare to offers made in other centuries. "And fries," Sean said. "And a vanilla milkshake." Annie remained unthrilled. "Okay, okay. You can have a Big Mac." Romance in my century, she thought, is pitiful.

Caroline B. Cooney

Romance, Hamburgers, Vanilla

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I wondered to myself why no one else had seen him standing so far away, before he was suddenly, impossibly saving my life. With chagrin, I realized the probable cause - no one else was as aware of Edward as I always was. No one else watched him the way I did. How pitiful.

Stephenie Meyer

Saving, Way, Causes

Stephenie Meyer (2009). “Twilight: Twilight”, p.47, Hachette UK

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And yet, sometimes facts are no more than pitiful consequences, because guilt does not reside in our acts but in the intentions that give rise to our act. Everything turns on our intentions.

Sándor Márai

Giving, Guilt, Doe

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They believe themselves Lucifer's equals, Cain, all these pitiful little gnats. But there is only one that we have ever owned to be our superior. There is but one greater than us, and to him... to him we no longer speak.

Neil Gaiman

Believe, Gnats, Cain

"The Sandman: Season of Mists. #22, episode 1". Comic book by Neil Gaiman, 1992.

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We need to gather everyone we can. Damien scoffed. Uh, boss, hate to be a pall, but I think everyone we can gather is currently in this room. Sin paused to look at Simi, Xirena, Damien, Kat, Kish, and Xypher. It was a pitiful number of defenders. But it was all the world had. In that case, we need to seriously arm ourselves. Damien crossed himself. Hail Mary, full of grace- What are you doing? Kish asked. You're not Catholic. Yeah but I'm feeling really religious all of a sudden and it seemed like a good idea.

Sherrilyn Kenyon

Religious, Hate, Thinking

Sherrilyn Kenyon (2009). “Devil May Cry”, p.124, Hachette UK

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My life is a pitiful, mechanical thing without a past, like a little wind-up car, ready to run in any direction someone points me.

Barbara Kingsolver

Running, Past, Wind

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Love is rather impotent and pitiful: My father must have told me a million times how much he loved me, but that emotion - assuming it was even real - hardly had the strength to counter the many other acts of wrong he committed against me. Contrary to romance novels and the love-conquers-all mentality that even those of us who grow up in an era of divorce are - in response to some atavistic instinct - still raised to believe, love is always a product and a victim of circumstances. It is fragile and small.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Growing Up, Father, Real

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Where do you get the right to decide our lives? I'll tell you where. From that little hog's gut that hangs between your legs. Well, let me tell you something... you will need more than that. I don't know where you will get it or who will give it to you, but mark my words, you will need more than that.... You are a sad, pitiful, stupid, selfish, hateful man. I hope your little hog's gut stands you in good stead, and you take good care of it, because you don't have anything else.

Toni Morrison

Selfish, Stupid, Men

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I'm knocking our pitiful, pathetic lawmakers. And I thank God that President Bush has stated, we need a Constitutional amendment that states that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Jimmy Swaggart

Marriage, Men, Thank God

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Hidan: That was pitiful! What happened there, buddy? Kakuzu: You should talk. I wasn't the one who fell for a shadow clone! Hidan: Ahaha, right. You saw that?

Masashi Kishimoto

Shadow, Saws, Should

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And even though he felt pitiful and ridiculous, he didn't want it to end, because he knew the absence of her would hurt more than any breakup ever could.

John Green

Breakup, Hurt, Want

John Green (2008). “An Abundance of Katherines”, p.44, Penguin

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I open a paperclip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this. A whimper, a peep? I draw little window cracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting.

Laurie Halse Anderson

Suicide, Hurt, Blood

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What an unfortunate instrument the guitar is! An instrument of such great nobility, a genuine monarch of music-- reduced to a pitiful lump of wood with six strings, constantly abused by people with no ear and no voice.

Sergei Lukyanenko

Guitar, Voice, People

Sergei Lukyanenko, Vladimir Nikolaevich Vasilʹev (2007). “Day watch”, Miramax

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In my terms, I settled for the realities of life, and submitted to its necessities: if this, then that, and so the years passed. In Adrian's terms, I gave up on life, gave up on examining it, took it as it came. And so, for the first time, I began to feel a more general remorse - a feeling somewhere between self-pity and self-hatred - about my whole life. All of it. I had lost the friends of my youth. I had lost the love of my wife. I had abandoned the ambitions I had entertained. I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded - and how pitiful that was.

Julian Barnes

Ambition, Reality, Self

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Teenage girls, please don’t worry about being super popular in high school, or being the best actress in high school, or the best athlete. Not only do people not care about any of that the second you graduate, but when you get older, if you reference your successes in high school too much, it actually makes you look kind of pitiful, like some babbling old Tennessee Williams character with nothing else going on in her current life. What I’ve noticed is that almost no one who was a big star in high school is also big star later in life. For us overlooked kids, it’s so wonderfully fair.

Mindy Kaling

Girl, Funny Inspirational, Stars

Mindy Kaling (2011). “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)”, p.31, Three Rivers Press

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