You may regret calamities if you can thereby help the sufferer, but if you cannot, mind your own business.

Pity wraps the student of the past in an ambrosial cloud, and washes his limbs with eternal youth.

Sacrifice not thy heart upon every altar.

We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.

We all have enough strength to bear the misfortunes of others.

Compassion for the friend should conceal itself under a hard shell.

Verily, I do not like them, the merciful who feel blessed in their pity: they are lacking too much in shame. If I must pity, at least I do not want it known; and if I do pity, it is preferably from a distance.

What value has compassion that does not take its object in its arms?

Worse than idle is compassion If it end in tears and sighs.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draft of simple human pity that will not forsake us.