“Inevitably, in the secret chemistry of the emotions the feeling of pity for a sick person is imperceptibly bound up with tenderness.”

— Stefan Zweig , book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

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Stefan Zweig 106

Austrian writer 1881–1942

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Alternate translation:
For as faintness is a disease of the body, so is vice a sickness of the mind. Wherefore, since we judge those that have corporal infirmities to be rather worthy of compassion than of hatred, much more are they to be pitied, and not abhorred, whose minds are oppressed with wickedness, the greatest malady that may be.
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book IV