Pity originally means feeling for others, particularly feelings of sadness or sorrow, and was once used in a comparable sense to the more modern words "sympathy" and "empathy". Through insincere usage, it now has more unsympathetic connotations of feelings of superiority or condescension.
Read more about Pity: History, Neurological Perspectives, As A Negative Emotion
Famous quotes containing the word pity:
“And do not pity C. Q. One had to choose between him and H. H., and one wanted H. H. to exist at least a couple of months longer, so as to have him make you live in the minds of later generations. I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Though I have locked my gate on them
I pity all the young,
I know what devil’s trade they learn
From those they live among,
Their drink, their pitch and toss by day,
Their robbery by night....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)