“If it be true that in showing pity and compassion we think of ourselves, because we fear to be one day or another in the same circumstances as those unfortunate people for whom we feel, why are the latter so sparingly relieved by us of their condition?”

— Jean de La Bruyère , book Les Caractères

Aphorism 48
Les Caractères (1688), Du Coeur

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Jean de La Bruyère 65

17th-century French writer and philosopher 1645–1696

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“If it be true that in showing pity and compassion we think of ourselves, because we fear to be one day or another in the same circumstances as those unfortunate people for whom we feel, why are the latter so sparingly relieved by us of their condition?”

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Jean de La Bruyère 65

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