Pity Quotes - Page 9

• What a pity that the only way to heaven is in a hearse.

  Bill Vaughan

  Heaven, Way, Miscellaneous

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• Let me set my mournful ditty To a merry measure; Thou wilt never come for pity, Thou wilt come for pleasure; Pity then will cut away Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Cutting, Wings, Pleasure

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1847). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.294

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• How many of our virtues originate in the fear of Death & that while we flatter ourselves that we are melting in Christian Sensibility over the sorrows of our human Brethren and Sisteren, we are in fact, tho' perhaps unconsciously, moved at the prospect of our own End for who sincerely pities Sea-sickness, Toothache, or a fit of the Gout in a lusty Good-liver of 50?

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Christian, Sea, Sorrow

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1956). “Collected Letters: 1820-1825”

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• It's hard to play a continuing character like Loomis for nearly 11 years and simply wash your hands of him. It seems a pity.

  Donald Pleasence

  Character, Hands, Years

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• Over all crowds there seems to float a vague distress, an atmosphere of pervasive melancholy, as if any large gathering of people creates an aura of terror and pity.

  Emile Zola

  People, Atmosphere, Gathering

  Emile Zola (1984). “The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Every hand and every hour should be devoted to rescue the world from its insanity of guilt, and to assuage the pangs of human hearts with balm and anodyne. To pity distress is but human; to relieve it is Godlike.

  Horace Mann

  Heart, Hands, Insanity

  Horace Mann (1867). “Lectures and Annual Reports on Education”, p.325

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• Loneliness, dejection, the contempt or pity of people around you--these are unpleasant feelings. But they are precisely the things that produce genuine Dark Ones.

  Sergei Lukyanenko

  Loneliness, Dark, People

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

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• I'm going to do my thing and if you react a certain way - with pity or with anger - that's up to you.

  Jennifer Lawrence

  Way, Up To You, Certain

  "Best Actress Nominee Jennifer Lawrence Heats Up Winter’s Bone". Interview with Brad Balfour, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 25, 2011.

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• It’s hard to feel hurt or frightened when you’re flooded with pity.

  Lindy West

  Hurt, Frightened, Feels

  "What happened when I confronted my cruellest troll" by Lindy West, www.theguardian.com. February 2, 2015.

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• I remember thinking, without pride of self-pity, that I was not rich or poor, that I wasn't good or bad. But that was difficult: to be neither good nor bad. It seemed to me, in the end, the same as being bad.

  Alejandro Zambra

  Pride, Thinking, Rich Or Poor

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• Do not be deceived by the way men of bad faith misuse words and names … Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the same category. Listen to me: the opposite of radical is superficial, the opposite of liberal is stingy; the opposite of conservative is destructive. Thus I will describe myself as a radical conservative liberal; but certain of the tainted red fish will swear that there can be no such fish as that. Beware of those who use words to mean their opposites. At the same time have pity on them, for usually this trick is their only stock in trade.

  R. A. Lafferty

  Mean, Men, Opposites

  "The Flame is Green" by R. A. Lafferty, (Ch. 5), 1971.

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• Pity is sworn servant unto love: And this be sure, wherever it begin To make the way, it lets your master in.

  Willa Cather

  Way, Masters, Servant

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• Evil men of every degree will use you, flatter you, lead you on until you are useless; then, if the virtuous do not pity you, or God compassionate, you are without a friend in the universe.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Men, Evil, Degrees

  Henry Ward Beecher (1856). “Lectures to young men: on various important subjects”, p.134

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• Pity it is to slay the meanest thing.

  Thomas Hood

  Thomas Hood (1871). “The poetical works of Thomas Hood, ed. by W.M. Rossetti”, p.25

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• O thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name City-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name Conqueror or City-burner! Thou too art a Conqueror and Victor; but of the true sort, namely over the Devil: thou too hast built what will outlast all marble and metal, and be a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple and Seminary and Prophetic Mount, whereto all kindreds of the Earth will pilgrim.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Art, Book, Writing

  Thomas Carlyle, Rodger L. Tarr, Mark Engel (2000). “Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books”, p.129, Univ of California Press

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• Being a retired major looks like an ideal thing to me. What a pity you couldn't eternally have been just a retired major.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Looks, Retired, Ideals

  "The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa, p. 218, 1982.

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• What a pity it is that there are so many words! Whenever one wants to say anything, three or four ways of saying it run into one's head together; and one can't tell which to choose. It is as troublesome and puzzling as choosing a ribbon ... or a husband.

  Julius Charles Hare

  Running, Husband, Together

  Julius Charles Hare, Augustus William Hare, Edward Hayes Plumptre (1871). “Guesses at Truth”, p.210

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• It is a great pity that human beings cannot find all of their satisfaction in scientific contemplativeness.

  Niels Bohr

  Satisfaction, Humans, Human Beings

  "Chandra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar‎". Book by Kameshwar C. Wali, 1990.

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• They that examine into the Nature of Man, abstract from Art and Education, may observe, that what renders him a Sociable Animal, consists not in his desire of Company, Good-nature, Pity, Affability, and other Graces of a fair Outside; but that his vilest and most hateful Qualities are the most necessary Accomplishments to fit him for the largest, and, according to the World, the happiest and most flourishing Societies.

  Bernard de Mandeville

  Art, Animal, Men

  Bernard de Mandeville (1723). “The Fable of the Bees”, p.1, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Sweat has the power to end a pity party in such a way that even the hostess is happy.

  Kristin Armstrong

  Party, Sweat, Way

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• If the impure and the unjust, the drunkard and the licentious, are loathsome to us, what must be the infinite loathing of an infinitely pure Spirit for those who are worldly and selfish, licentious and cruel, ambitious and animal! But with this great loathing is a great pity. And the pity conquers the loathing, appeases it, satisfies it, is reconciled with it, only as it redeems the sinner from his loathsomeness, lifts him up from his degradation, brings him to truth and purity, to love and righteousness; for only thus is he or can he be brought to God.

  Lyman Abbott

  Selfish, Animal, Ambitious

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• The offence is what is improperly called the death of an infant, who has ceased to be, before knowing what existence is, a result of a nature not to give the slightest inquietude to the most timid imagination; and which can cause no regrets but to the very person who, through a sentiment of shame and pity, has refused to prolong a life begun under the auspices of misery.

  Jeremy Bentham

  Regret, Knowing, Giving

  Jeremy Bentham, Etienne Dumont (1871). “Theory of Legislation”, p.265

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• Some paradox of our natures leads us, when once we have made our fellow men the objects of our enlightened interest, to go on to make them the objects of our pity , then of our wisdom , ultimately of our coercion.

  Lionel Trilling

  Men, Goes On, Fellow Man

  Lionel Trilling (2012). “The Liberal Imagination”, p.221, New York Review of Books

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• Self-pity is an ignoble emotion, but we all feel it, and the orthodox critical line that it represents some kind of artistic flaw is dubious, a form of emotional correctness.

  Nick Hornby

  Emotional, Self, Dubious

  Nick Hornby (2003). “Songbook”, p.49, Penguin

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• Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child; Pity my simplicity, Suffer me to come to thee.

  Charles Wesley

  Jesus, Children, Simplicity

  'Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild'

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