Famous quotes containing the word pitiful:
“Each man, if he attempts to join himself to others, is on all sides cramped and diminished of his proportion; and the stricter the union, the smaller and the more pitiful he is. But leave him alone, to recognize in every hour and place the secret soul, he will go up and down doing the works of a true member, and, to the astonishment of all, the work will be done with concert, though no man spoke.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The pursuit of Fashion is the attempt of the middle class to co-opt tragedy. In adopting the clothing, speech, and personal habits of those in straitened, dangerous, or pitiful circumstances, the middle class seeks to have what it feels to be the exigent and nonequivocal experiences had by those it emulates.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“If ever you prove false to one another, since I have taken such pain to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world’s end after my name; call them all Pandars.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)