“Pity is an emotion equally unpleasant to the bestower as to the recipient.”

“For Prudence, is but Experience; which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.”

“Of all the well-meant emotions pity is the cruelest to share.”

“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.”

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

“The bestowing upon men equality of rights, is but giving license to the strong to oppress the weak. It begets the grossest inequalities of condition.”

“Pity is an emotion that can get you killed. The only thing more dangerous is blind hate, and maybe love.”

“Welcome the view that the things which you think are wrecking your life - like your thoughts and emotions, or illness and death - are actually gifts for your transformation… Whether life presents us with a pleasant sound or an unpleasant sound, a pleasant smell or an unpleasant smell, a pleasant thought or an unpleasant thought, it's sheer delight because instead of identifying with the experience, we simply touch it and let it go.”

“One recalls how much the creative impulse of the best-sellers depends upon self-pity. It is an emotion of great dramatic potential.”

“I let myself feel good and sorry for myself, but only for a second. Daddy always said that the most useless of all human emotions was self-pity.”