Pity

"Villain, thou know'st no law of God nor man No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity."

"My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks; O, if thine eye be not a flatterer, Come thou on my side, and entreat for me, As you would beg, were you in my distress: A begging prince what beggar pities not?"

"Tear-falling pity dwells not in his eye."

"I shall despair. There is no creature loves me; And if I die, no soul shall pity me: Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself Find in myself no pity to myself?"

"Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, That sees into the bottom of my grief?"

"But, I perceive, Men must learn now with pity to dispense; For policy sits above conscience."

"Pity is the virtue of the law, And none but tyrants use it cruelly."

"Soft pity never leaves the gentle breast Where love has been received a welcome guest."

"In the just and generous heart, the humble and the weak inspire compassion, and call for pity and forbearance."

"Now, pity is the touch of God In human hearts."

"Pity's akin to love; and every thought Of that soft kind is welcome to my soul."

"No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence. A just man does justice to every man and to every thing; and then, if he be also wise, be knows there is a debt of mercy and compassion due to the infirmities of man's nature; and that is to be paid: and he that is cruel and ungentle to a sinning person, and does the worst to him, dies in his debt and is unjust. Pity, and forbearance, and long-sufferance, and fair interpretation, and excusing our brother, and taking in the best sense, and passing the gentlest sentence, are as certainly our duty, and owing to every person that does offend and can repent, as calling to account can be owing to the law, and are first to be paid; and he that does not so is an unjust person."

"The world is full of love and pity, I say. Had there been less suffering, there would have been less kindness."

"If you wish me well, do not stand pitying me, but lend me some succour as fast as you can; for pity is but cold comfort when one is up to the chin in water, and within a hair's breadth of starving or drowning."

"Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart."

"So great was her sorrow, as the Music unfolded, that her song turned to lamentation long before its end, and the sound of mourning was woven into the themes of the World before it began. But she does not weep for herself; and those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope."

"To love with the spirit is to pity, and he who pities most loves most."

"Pity essentially depends on clarity of vision."

"O, brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother; Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there; To worship rightly is to love each other, Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer."

"When beauty in distress appears, An irresistless charm it bears; In every breast does pity move, Pity, the tenderest part of love."

"A pity beyond all telling Is hid in the heart of love."

"There are two kinds of pity. One, the weak and sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart's impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotions aroused by the sight of another's unhappiness, that pity which is not compassion, but only an instinctive desire to fortify one's own soul against the sufferings of another; and the other, the only kind that counts, the unsentimental but creative kind, which knows what it is about, and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and even beyond."

"With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly....Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me."