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verb
Pity  v. i.  To be compassionate; to show pity. "I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pity" Quotes from Famous Books



... described by Lady Munster, is extremely severe; and when she finally commits suicide, maddened by the imprisonment to which her husband had subjected her, it is difficult not to feel a good deal of pity for her. Lady Munster writes a very clever, bright style, and has a wonderful faculty of drawing in a few sentences the most lifelike portraits of social types and social exceptions. Sir Jasper Broke ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... Hertz, in one of those pinch-waist belted suits and a trench coat and a little green hat, walking up Michigan Avenue of a bright winter's afternoon, trying to take the curb with a jaunty youthfulness against which every one of his fat-encased muscles rebelled, was a sight for mirth or pity, depending on one's vision. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... just the bare trace of brutality in Bobby as he said this, and he suddenly recognized it in himself with dismay. What pity Bobby might have felt for these bankrupt men, however, was swept away in a gust of renewed aggressiveness when Trimmer, arousing himself from the ashen age which seemed all at once to be creeping over him, said, with a return of that old circular ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... temptations which have perhaps had far greater influence in the formation of his character than any deliberate and intentional depravity of his own; ascertain what these temptations are, that you may know where to pity him and where to blame. The knowledge which such an examination of character will give you, will not be confined to making you acquainted with the individual. It will be the most valuable knowledge which a man can possess, both to assist him in the ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott

... of distress have reached us from thousands of suffering Israelites in your vast empire; and we Englishmen, with pity in our souls for all who suffer, turn to your Majesty to implore for them your Sovereign ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... earth to make them happy and comfortable, just the kind of mother Ann would make, though she had not Ann's steady wonder of a little head or her shrewd farsightedness. Jem would have been in luck if he had been her son. It was a darned pity he hadn't been. If he had, perhaps he would not have ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Rich in her love, he had never taken a thought to propitiate anybody, nor to make friends with the Mammon of Unrighteousness, and when she suddenly departed, he turned round and found himself alone. So far from knocking at men's doors, he more fiercely hated those who now, touched with pity, would gladly have welcomed him. He broke from them all, lived his own life, was reputed to be a freethinker, and when he came to his estate, a long while afterwards, he put up the obelisk, and recorded ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... over some countryside a peerage resting on heredity was doomed; for no one can defend a system whereby men of no exceptional ability, representative of nothing, are legislators by inheritance. Should we summon to a conclave of the nations a king who had no kingdom? But the pity of it! Not only the break with eight centuries of history—nay, more, for when had not every king his council of notables?—not only the loss of picturesqueness and sentiment and lofty mien, but the certainty, the appalling certainty, that, when an aristocracy of birth falls, it is not ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... him to be the agent in making the best use of a large property and withdrawing it from perversion. Death and other striking dispositions, such as feminine trustfulness, had come; and Bulstrode would have adopted Cromwell's words—"Do you call these bare events? The Lord pity you!" The events were comparatively small, but the essential condition was there—namely, that they were in favor of his own ends. It was easy for him to settle what was due from him to others by inquiring what were God's intentions with regard ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... friends; but we—O we Need them so, as we falter here, Fumbling through each new vacancy, As each is stricken that we hold dear. One you struck but a year ago; And one not a month ago; and one— (God's vast pity!)—and one lies now Where the widow wails, in her nameless woe, And the soldiers pace, with the sword and gun, Where the comrade sleeps, with the ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley

... optics brings us already very close to this neighboring province. 'Tis a pity we can not get ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... so that the streets were filled with executions and with funeral processions for many days. Universal grief and panic prevailed, and yet no one dared to manifest the slightest indications of sorrow or of fear. The people supposed that pity for the sufferers, or anxiety for themselves, would be interpreted as proofs that they had been concerned in the conspiracy; for multitudes of those who had been put to death, were condemned on pretexts and pretended proofs of the most frivolous character. Every one, therefore, ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... went out, and Lady Sellingworth went to sit down near the fire. She now looked exactly as usual, casual, indifferent, but kind, not at all like a woman who would ever pity herself. In a moment the footman announced "Mr. Craven," and Craven walked in with an eager but slightly ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... his hand, than the title and noble name which she can procure for him. Your majesty, I implore not for myself, but for the daughter of a man who once had the good fortune to save your life in battle! Have pity upon her, and do not sacrifice her to an inconsolably hopeless life by the side of an ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... kicking, though you're shamming dead— You've hit the truth at last. It's that, just that, Makes all the difference. If you hadn't children, I'ld find it in my heart to pity you, Granted you'ld let me. I don't understand! I've seen you stripped. I've seen your children stripped. You've never seen me naked; but you can guess The misstitched, gnarled, and crooked thing I am. Now, do you understand? I may have words. But you, man, do ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)

... fidelity, no ties Such as the harem shelters. Dupes are they Who think that Love can ever be compelled! Only what's lovely Love can truly love, And fickleness and falsehood are deformed. Reveal their features, Love may mourn indeed, But will not rave. Love, even when abandoned, Feels pity and not anger for the heart That could not prize Love's warm fidelity. But Passion, selfish, proud, and murderous, Seizes the pistol or the knife, and kills;— And cozened juries make a heroine Of her who, stung with jealousy or pride, Or, by some meaner motive, hurled a wreck, Assassinates her ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... and this excited the compassion of several gentlemen to think of some method of relieving the poor from that distress in which they were often involved without any fault of their own, but by some conduct which deserved pity rather than punishment." ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... wish them joy of their party whoever they be that share it!" Then all at once her mood changed to one of pity as the solitary street showed a moving light upon its footway. "Oh!" she cried. "There's Donacha Breck's lantern and his wife will be with him. And to-day she was at me for my jelly for a cold! I wish—I wish she was not over the door this night; it will be the death of her. To-morrow ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... he in turn is cited by the scholiasts as authority for an opinion of Vergil's. If the Daphnis-song is an elegy written at his death—and it would be difficult to find a more fitting subject—the poem, undoubtedly one of the most charming of Vergil's Eclogues, was composed in 41 B.C. It were a pity if Vergil's prayer for the poet should after all not ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... not kill Monsieur Ruthyn to make his will; he will not come to lie here a day sooner by cause of that; but if he make no will, you may lose a great deal of the property. Would not that be pity?' ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... proclaimed their opinion that the German nation ought not to be humiliated. When all is said, Mr. Punch saves his pity for our murdered dead. ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... have ten or twelve—just enough to make me think I'm drunk. Then I keep on until I think I'm sober. Then I know I'm drunk!" They are beginning, unfortunately for their audiences, to take themselves seriously. This is a pity, for the more spontaneous and inane they are, the more they are in their place on the vaudeville stage. There is more make-believe and hard work on the halls to-day, and I think they are none the better for it. As soon as art becomes self-conscious, its ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... displeasure on the nation and its dependencies. May these considerations induce thee to interpose thy kind endeavours in behalf of this greatly injured people, whose abject situation gives them an additional claim to the pity and assistance of the generous mind, inasmuch as they are altogether deprived of the means of soliciting effectual relief for themselves; that so thou mayest not only be a blessed instrument in the hand of him 'by whom kings reign and princes ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... a gulping cry of alarm and pity, he stooped to lift his unconscious daughter. He had not intended to do ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... time that he became king nothing could drag him from the soft life of the palace; in no single instance did he take the field, either against his country's enemies or his own. Miserable as was his end, we can scarcely deem him worthy of our pity, since there never lived a man whose misfortunes were more truly brought on him by his ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... world of womankind. Her hands were like her uncle's: but they were more in place at the end of her young arms, and looked infinitely soft and caressing. He remembered how her blue eyes had shone upon him, full of anger, pity, and innocence. And the more he dwelt on her perfections, the uglier death looked, and the more deeply was he smitten with penitence at her continued tears. Now he felt that no man could have the courage to leave a world which contained so beautiful a creature; and now he would have ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... am afraid our party in the picture will all be wet to the skin. It is a pity they have only one umbrella among them, and they have a long distance to go before they reach home. It was fine when they started, so they were not prepared for such a storm. But perhaps it ...
— Child-Land - Picture-Pages for the Little Ones • Oscar Pletsch

... she was the more struck with it as she was still conscious of the failure even of curiosity he had just shown in respect to herself. She had meant something—though indeed for herself almost only—in speaking of their friend's natural pity; it had been a note, doubtless, of questionable taste, but it had quavered out in spite of her; and he had not so much as cared to inquire "Why 'natural'?" Not that it wasn't really much better for her that he shouldn't: explanations would in truth have taken her ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... the children at no great distance from them. With all a woman's penetration, she had guessed Rowland's secret during his mother's illness, and had perceived no symptoms of attachment on the part of Miss Gwynne; and now, with all a woman's pity, she was watching him from afar. She had seen them standing together, had marked the hasty bow and retreat of the lady, and the immoveable attitude of the gentleman; she saw that he continued to stand where Miss Gwynne had left him, as if he were a statue; ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... present day that it was blowing a 'harricane,' and, according to the report of the coxswain of the lifeboat, 'it was blowing a very heavy gale of wind.' There was, therefore, no mere capful of wind, but a real, whole, tremendous gale. Old salts are always ready to pity landsmen, and to overwhelm them with 'Bless you's!' when they venture to talk of a 'storm'; but the harsh, steady roar of the wind on this day made it plainly ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor

... tears and groans the guilt of his past rebellion; nor would he presume to arise, unless some faithful subject would drag him to the foot of the throne, by an iron chain with which he had secretly encircled his neck. This extraordinary penance excited the wonder and pity of the assembly; his sins were forgiven by the church and state; but the just suspicion of Manuel fixed his residence at a distance from the court, at Oenoe, a town of Pontus, surrounded with rich vineyards, and situate ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... seen the cavaliere standing behind her, at that moment, and how those eyes of his were riveted on Enrica with a look in which hope, thankfulness, pity, and joy, crossed and combated together—mercy on us! she would have turned ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... for them about a year and then went to Memphis, where she was sick in a hospital. She had now taken the B.'s name. They were regarded as her guardians (on the girl's authority) and they finally sent for her again out of pity, although they felt she had a questionable past, and they knew she had lied tremendously while with them. Then the B.'s moved away and turned Inez over to a respectable family. While with the B.'s Inez had been regarded as a partial invalid; their physician diagnosed the case ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy

... Rhame's behalf and must go with him to Charleston. At this juncture Dangerfield, the trustee, came up and demanded Singletary's authority, whereupon the latter showed him his power of attorney and read him the laws under which he was proceeding. Dangerfield, seeking delay, said it would be a pity to drag the negroes through the mud, and sent a boy to bring his own wagon for them. While this vehicle was being awaited Colonel James Ferguson, a dignitary of the neighborhood who had evidently been secretly sent for ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... as He doth ordain; He will not turn one foot aside; Thy good deeds mount up but in vain, Thou must in sorrow ever bide; Stint of thy strife, cease to complain, Seek His compassion safe and wide, Thy prayer His pity may obtain, Till Mercy all her might have tried. Thy anguish He will heal and hide, And lightly lift away thy gloom; For, be thou sore or satisfied, All is for Him ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett

... Therefore, if you are assailed by the world, and are provoked to impatience by ingratitude, contempt and persecution, compare with your trials the blessings and consolations you have in Christ and his Gospel. You will soon find you have more reason to pity your enemies than you have to murmur and to ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... going to Mr. and Mrs. Dowse, Violet," said he promptly. "I pity the poor people, but we have a prior claim on you, and we mean to insist on it. What, just after all this grief of separation, you would go away from us again? No, no! I tell you, Violet, we shall never find you your real self until you have been braced up by the sea breezes. I mean the ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... and my son's, to profit by the experience, while you pity the errors, of the many who illustrate this truth. Your mutual partiality has been mutually unfortunate, and must always continue so for the interests of both: but how blind is it to wait, in our own peculiar lots, for that perfection of enjoyment we can all ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... hearken, boy, when thy father calls thee?" Whereupon Ruediger followed him in much displeasure, and we saw from a distance how the old lord seemed to threaten his son, and spat out before him; but knew not what this might signify: we were to learn it soon enough, though, more's the pity! Soon after the two Lepels of Gnitze came from the Damerow; and the noblemen saluted one other on the green sward close beside us, but without looking on us. And I heard the Lepels say that nought could yet be seen of his Majesty, but that the coastguard ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold

... for a long time, without exchanging a word. Then he knelt down beside her, pressed his head to her breast, put his arms round her; and there was infinite tenderness and great pity in the gesture with which he embraced the girl. They did not move. A soft silence united them, and ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... the wild prairieman's rifle was a capital good one, as good a one as ever killed a bear, he tho't it a pity that it should fall into bad hands, so went to secure it himself, although the frontispiece of its dead owner warn't very invitin'. But when he stooped to take the gun, he got such a shove as knocked him backwards, and on getting up, he saw the prairieman ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... he was sore pressed and in trouble he came back to me, and after that Mary here was born; and one other, a boy, who, God rest him, has gone from these troubles. And since that it is not often that he has been with me. But now, now that he is here, you should have pity on us, ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... the kindness and fervent zeal of your Majesty, with which you have always striven for the preservation and propagation of the Catholic faith; and prostrate at your royal feet he entreats that your Majesty will be pleased to take pity on so many souls and the conversions for which the religious of St. Dominic are caring and in which they are laboring in the said Filipinas Islands. They ask that you will grant to the said province forty religious, [31] and a suitable number of lay brethren; and to the petitioner permission ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... presence, for he was now in the full tide of his grief, and, not having forgotten the precepts which had been carefully instilled into him, he thought of the God of Refuge, and he arose, fell on his knees, and prayed. The little girl, whose tears had already been summoned by pity and sympathy, dropped her basket, and knelt by his side—not that she prayed, for she knew not what the prayer was for, but from an instinctive feeling of respect towards the Deity which her new companion was addressing, and a feeling of kindness ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... the corner of his eyes that it might have surprised him a little to see; but Mr Snow saw nothing at the moment. To wonder as to why this new acquaintance should bestow his confidence on him, was succeeding a feeling of pity for him—a desire to help him—and he was considering the propriety of improving the opportunity given to drop a "word in season" for his benefit. Not that he had much confidence in his own skill at this sort of thing. It is to be feared the deacon looked on this way ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... the islands and rocks and shoals of the beautiful, perilous coast of Scotland. Inch-cape Rock, as it was then called, had shipwrecked many a helpless crew before the Abbot of Aberbrathock, fifteen miles off, out of pity caused a float to be fixed on the rock, with a bell attached which, swinging by the motion of the waves, ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous

... that Sir Joseph and Lady Webling were in a state of panic, too. They smiled at her with a wan pity and fear. She caught them whispering often. She saw them cling together with a devotion that would have been a burlesque in a picture seen by strangers. It would have been almost as grotesque as a view of a hippopotamus ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... arrived in the nick of time," said Jack; "but as your island now seems tolerably quiet, we may as well remove the stores, the men's bags, and your own things, which it will be a pity to lose, and I shall be glad to leave some of these boats which we ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... Jessamine, Slow-footed, weary-eyed, passed by to win The elm, we smiled for pity of her, and mused On love that so could live with love refused. And the moon ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... a transitional time, the old Norse world, mingling strangely in him with the new. He was the last outcome of his race. Norse daring and cruelty were side by side with gentleness and aspiration. No human pity tempered his vengeance. When hides were hung on the City Walls at Alencon, in insult to his mother (the daughter of a tanner), he tore out the eyes, cut off the hands and feet of the prisoners, and threw them over the walls. When he did this, and when he refused Harold's ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... In the starlight she could not make out the bitter hardness of lines that were beginning to be carved about his sensitive mouth. But there was so much sadness in his voice that her heart went out to him in pity. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... a mighty mediator. There all the flames of rage are extinguished, hatred is appeased, and angelic pity, like a weeping sister, bends with gentle and close embrace over ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various

... underground necessitates. The process of washing on their return from the pit is not performed as privately as it might be, and the effect of this upon the moral perceptions of the people, huddled together in their small cottages, is very injurious. It is a pity some arrangement is not made for having washhouses at the pits, where a supply of hot water from the boilers might be easily obtained ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... enshrine with fame. Posterity, ignorant of his character, will find his name clothed with a paragon's armour, while respecting the writer who so cleverly with a pen obliterated his crimes. We have only feelings of pity for the historian who discards truth thus to pollute paper with his kindness; such debts due to friendship are badly paid at the shrine of falsehood. No such debts do we owe; we shall perform our duty fearlessly, avoiding dramatic effect, or aught else that ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... mysterious of men must be born for me alone." Yet could she not forbear, almost against her will, to look from time to time in friendly tenderness on the poor Edwald, who sat there silent, and with a sweet smile seemed to pity and to mock his own suffering and his own ...
— Aslauga's Knight • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... irreplaceable values, other than human life, caused by the war, is summed up, as far as France is concerned, in this West Front of Rheims; so marred in all its beautiful detail, whether of glass or sculpture, yet still so grand, so instinct still with the pleading powers of the spirit. The "pity of it!" and at the same time, the tenacious undying life of France—all the long past behind her, the unconquerable future before her—these are the ideas one carries away from Rheims, hot in the heart. Above all, for the moment, the pity of it—the horror of this huge outrage ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... eyebrows a little and looked almost with pity at his adversary. "We are not talking in the heroic manner," he replied, unmoved by the other's taunt, "we are, I presume, two fairly intelligent men discussing this affair together—there has been no question of ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn

... "You was takin' a private lesson in plain and fancy swimmin' on a pink sofa cushion; and that there ancient and honourable milk crock was willed to you by the Mound-buildin' Aztecs; and a big bear come in the night and et up your wild strawberries—which was a great pity, too, seein' they're worth thirty cents a quart right this minute on the New York market; and you killed them two pedigreed Leghorn woodcocks with a bow and arrows in the forest—the forest whutever you jest now called it. Jest whut are ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... still above the western ridge in the effulgence of its adieu for the day. Jack was on his knee, with the broad, level glare full on him, looking at Prather, who was in the shadow; and his reflections were mixed with that pity which one feels toward another who is lame or blind or suffers for the want of any sense or faculty that is born to the average human being. For a man of true courage rarely sees a coward as anything but a man ailing; he is grateful for ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... with his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his tunic—I felt the full force of the appeal. "I acknowledge it," said I, "a coarse habit, and that but once in three years, with meagre diet—are no great matters; and the true point of pity is, as they can be earn'd in the world with so little industry, that your order should wish to procure them by pressing upon a fund which is the property of the lame, the blind, the aged, and the infirm; and had you been of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... can only succeed in multiplying impossibilities of thought "by every attempt we make to explain its existence." No one has pointed out more clearly than Mr. Spencer that "infinity" is not a conception, but the negation of one. The pity is that he did not realise that in taking up this position he was on exactly the same level of criticism that Atheists have pursued. For them the universe is an ultimate fact; all that we can do is to mark the ceaseless changes always going on around us, and to develope our capacity ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... licking his wet chops with satisfaction, and supremely glad of his freedom. He lay down on the grass near the pond and proceeded to lick those of his wounds and bruises which were within licking reach, and to pity himself regarding the sharp pain in his side which his broken rib was causing. Presently a cart came jolting along from the direction in which Finn had come, and the Wolfhound shrank back as far as possible into the hedge behind him. But the driver of the cart took no further notice of Finn than ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... then we shall have to fight her after all," exclaimed the colonel, with animation. "It's a pity we didn't have it out yesterday, and have enjoyed a quiet night's ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... between the fatally injured woman and Mrs. Bodine, who under his remedies and the efforts of George and Ella soon revived. Mr. Houghton looked with wonder, pity, and some embarrassment at the small, frail form, and the white, thin face of one whom had characterized as "that terrible old woman." She seemed scarcely a shadow of what she had been on that former night, more ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... a pose in her frank, downright young pride. Her cousin felt like a person who has been walking down-stairs and tries to step off a tread that isn't there. Elliott's own cheeks reddened as she thought of the patronizing pity she had felt. Luckily, Laura hadn't seemed to notice it. And Laura was quick to see things, too. Elliott realized, with a little stab of chagrin, that Laura wouldn't understand why her cousin had pitied her, even if some one should be at pains to ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist

... delicate, melancholy-looking young man opposite to us, I enquired who he was. "O! I pity that man very much," said my friend. "He has got a sentence of twenty-one years' penal servitude, and is as innocent of the crime as the ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... love, but of sternness; a God in whose eyes physical pain is not the worst of evils, nor animal life—too often miscalled human life—the most precious of objects; a God who destroys, when it seems fit to Him, and that wholesale, and seemingly without either pity or discrimination, man, woman, and child, visiting the sins of the fathers on the children, making the land empty and bare, and destroying from off it man and beast? This is the God of the Old Testament. And if any say—as is too often rashly said—This is not the God of the New: I answer, ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... July, Fryday 30, this present year, 1652. Before the Right Honourable, Peter Warburton.... Collected from the Observations of E. G. Gent, a learned person, present at their Conviction and Condemnation, and digested by H. F. Gent., London, 1652. It is a pity that the digesting was not omitted. The account, however, is trustworthy. Mention is made of this trial by Elias Ashmole in his Diary (London, 1717) and by The Faithful Scout, July 30-August ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... his troubled brow. "My dear old friend," he said, "take pity on me, and tell me all you know; do not compel me to ask so ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... of LOUIS-PHILIPPE; we sympathised with him as a bold, able, high-principled man fighting the fight of good government against a faction of smoke-headed fools and scoundrel desperadoes. He has out-lived our good opinion—the good opinion of the world. He is, after all, a lump of crowned vulgarity. Pity it is that men, the trusting and the brave, are made the puppets, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... Jonathan, that in New York of all the persons who die one in every ten dies a pauper and is buried in Potter's Field? It is a pity that we have not statistics upon this point covering most of our cities, including your own city of Pittsburg. If we had, I should ask you to try an experiment. I should ask you to give up one of your Saturday afternoons, or any day when you might be idle, and to take your stand at the busiest ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... did end. I am sorry a just King, led astray by his Hobby, answers thus what is only superficially the fact. But it seems he cannot help it: his Hobby is too strong for him; regardless of curb and bridle in this instance. Let us pity a man of genius, mounted on so ungovernable a Hobby; leaping the barriers, in spite of his best resolutions. Perhaps the poetic temperament is more liable to such morbid biases, influxes of imaginative crotchet, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... No, I shall not be in a hurry—I love my daughter too well. We must be better acquainted before I give her to him. I shall not sacrifice my Amelia to the will of others, as I myself was sacrificed. The poor girl might, in thoughtlessness, say yes, and afterwards be miserable. What a pity she is not a boy! The name of Wildenhaim will die with me. My fine estates, my good peasants, all will fall into the hands of strangers. Oh! why was not my Amelia ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald

... metropolis; go the first grey, east-windy day into the Caledonian Station, if it looks at all as it did of yore: I met Satan there. And then go and stand by the cross, and remember the other one - him that went down - my brother, Robert Fergusson. It is a pity you had not made me out, and seen me as patriarch and planter. I shall look forward to some record of your time with Chalmers: you can't weary me of that fellow, he is as big as a house and far bigger than any church, where no man warms his hands. Do ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "Don't! For pity's sake, don't!" I cried. The twilight had brought a cold rain with gusty squalls that plucked at the ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... dreaming: not that way, surely; not though her heart were moved with the purest pity angels could bestow; not thou, Vesty, above all, sweet one, beautiful one! to a union ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... deck in the sun," said Nan. "She'll like that. I wish I could ask one of my girl friends to come along with us for the houseboat trip. We have so many nice rooms on the Bluebird it seems a pity not to ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope

... faithfully, I was insulted and abused; but now that I have countenanced the public thieves in a variety of malpractices, I am considered an admirable patriot. I am more ashamed, therefore, of this present honor than of the former sentence; and I pity your condition, with whom is more praiseworthy to oblige bad men than to preserve ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... very dearest, very tenderest, Flapping and fluttering and flickering skirting. Yea, if ye should, ye beauteous friendly ones, Quite take my word: She hath, alas! LOST it! Hu! Hu! Hu! Hu! Hu! It is away! For ever away! The other leg! Oh, pity for that loveliest other leg! Where may it now tarry, all-forsaken weeping? The lonesomest leg? In fear perhaps before a Furious, yellow, blond and curled Leonine monster? Or perhaps even Gnawed away, nibbled badly— Most wretched, woeful! ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... than he would be if we were up there with him, forcin' him to look everlastingly like four aces, when it's deuces at present he's holding. He's worried, and that's why I don't grow nervous myself. Because it is only the man who is too sure who is awful likely to finish broke. Don't you waste any pity on him yet, and I wouldn't let him hear me passing uncomplimentary words concerning his girl, either, if I was you. Lightning ain't particular where it strikes when it's been a long time cooped up. Every man to his own taste in such ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... our schemes of work, the little good we may have been able to do, will it not all be swept away by the tempest that is in preparation?...Everywhere the earth is shaking under our feet and storm-clouds are gathering on our horizon which will have no pity ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... pity arises from the afflictions of others, and it happens even to brute animals to feel pain, the affection of pity may arise in man even about the afflictions of animals. Obviously, whoever is practised in the affection of pity towards animals, is thereby more disposed to the ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... Louis's marriage with Hortense de Beauharnais, and his sister Caroline's with Murat blessed by Cardinal Caprara, but in spite of Josephine's entreaties, he had denied her this pious satisfaction. It was on the Pope that the Empress put all her hope; she thought that he would take pity on her, and by bringing her into conformity with the rules of the church, would put an end to a condition of things humiliating to her as a sovereign, and painful to her as ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... impossibility of feeding great numbers at one point. They held it a part of their religion to seek vengeance for all injuries, real and imaginary, and their general traits of character were as savage as their habits. In war they had no pity on captives, no reverence for helpless age, and were strangers to the sentiments of honor and justice. They were brave, yet much given to cunning and treachery. They rarely forgot benefits or ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... cases their parents are never found. In the great cities, by the death of parents, and by the abandonment of children—sometimes through extreme destitution, at other times by unnatural indifference—helpless little ones are cast on the pity of the public. From country places forsaken children are sent to the head-quarters of districts. In seasons of scarcity, which frequently occur, and especially in famine years such as 1861, large additions are made to the ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... being jumped on in an unheard of manner. Those people who have read my novel are afraid to talk to me of it lest they compromise themselves or out of pity for me. The more indulgent declare I have made only pictures and that both composition and plan ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... officer was gently helping a pale little old woman sit down before the camera, as if she were more an object of pity ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner

... each and started the machine. It is a pity that Hogarth could not have been present to have painted the several expressions that came upon the faces of those four. A quiet but amused satisfaction beamed from Thor, and his counsel could not conceal a broad smile, but the wretched victim was fairly sick from mortification and defeated ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... for some time, Jeroboam took some of his friends and counselers into the secret of his reflections, and they agreed with him. Thereupon he proceeded to establish home rule in religion as in everything else, and his whole course is an exhibition of great shrewdness. It is a pity that so bright an intellect had not been united with a ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various

... the ginger-beer, or pay for the ginger-beer with the money for the telegram. Once inside a cab Cyril was bound to go on. Hacking might be committed more completely to the enterprise by waiting inside until he arrived with Cyril. It was a pity that Cyril was not locked in his room, and yet when it came to it he would probably have funked letting himself down from the window by knotted sheets. Mark walked home with Hacking after school, to give his final ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... not dissimilar to ours. For He who is true God, is likewise true man, and there is no fraud(186) since both the humility of the man and the loftiness of God meet.(187) For as God is not changed by the manifestation of pity, so the man is not consumed [absorbed] by the dignity. For each form [i.e., nature] does in communion with the other what is proper to it [agit enim utraque forma cum alterius communione quod proprium est]; namely, by the action of the Word what is of the ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... returns could be made proportionate to so curious and elaborate an importation; but whenever he ventured to intimate his opinion to any of the most commercial nation in the world he was only listened to with an incredulous smile which seemed to pity his inexperience, or told, with an air of profound self-complacency, that in Fantaisie 'there must ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... lady kept so still and silent that the shopkeeper's wife was surprised. She went back to her, and on a nearer view a sudden impulse of pity, blended perhaps with curiosity, got the better of her. The old lady's face was naturally pale; she looked as though she secretly practised austerities; but it was easy to see that she was paler than usual from recent agitation of some kind. Her head-dress was ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac

... theological questions of the papal supremacy and of ecclesiastical authority generally took with them quite a material form. The diatribes of the Benedictine monk Matthew Paris are well known, and their worldly spirit can only excite in us pity that they should have been the chief cause of the destruction of his own order in England and Ireland, and of the total spoliation of the religious houses in whose behalf he ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... venerable, and the proportions majestic. Here, whilst the congregation knelt through the long litany, as often as we came to that passage, so beautiful amongst many that are so, where God is supplicated on behalf of "all sick persons and young children," and that he would "show his pity upon all prisoners and captives," I wept in secret; and raising my streaming eyes to the upper windows of the galleries, saw, on days when the sun was shining, a spectacle as affecting as ever prophet can have beheld. The sides of the windows were rich with storied glass; through the deep purples ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... likelihood," I interrupted, "of my being able to assume a martyr's crown, Miss Cullen; so don't begin to pity me till I'm ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... accounted himself a numskull that he had not understood before. But he none the less deemed it a pity Richard ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... a decree of the senate; on the right, St. Dominick and St. Petronius; on the left, St. Proculus and St. Francis. These sainted personages look up as if adjuring the Virgin, even by her own deep anguish, to intercede for the city; she is here at once our Lady of Pity, of Succour, and of Sorrow. This wonderful picture was dedicated, as an act of penance and piety, by the magistrates of Bologna, in 1616, and placed in their chapel in the church of the "Mendicanti," otherwise S. Maria-della-Pieta. It hung there for two centuries, ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... charnel-house if you like, under those trees there, but a very beautiful one as is evident. We ought to keep alive the memories that make the place romantic. It would be a pity if utilitarian axe and fire were to spoil the beauty of Te Puke Tapu. There is plenty of other good land to be had. No need for us to covet this, fertile as it is; no need to make a commonplace farm out of that picturesque old battle-ground. May it long ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... thought, had met with misfortune; for having been before wealthy and distinguished, he had afterwards lost all and was living here. So I wrote about him in a humble style. He however on reading the letter returned it to me, with the words: "I asked for your help, not for your pity. No ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... be tried by Court Martial. The troops when they heard this were very indignant; but old Vinoy rode along the line, and told them that they might think what they pleased, but that he would have no cowards serving under him. Pity that ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... like the balm of its roses, Or breath of the morning, a sigh took its flight; Nor far had it stray'd forth, when Pity proposes The wanderer should lodge in this ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... would not have done so to her friends, as they had done to her; but then presently she reflected what reason she had to know better and to do better, that they had not; and instead of anything like resentment, a very gentle and tender feeling of pity and kindness arose in Daisy's ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... invited us to chocolat a la creme, made with the boon of the ex-bar-keeper. I suppose I may say, without flattery, that this tipple was marvellous. What a pity Nature spoiled a cook by making the muddler of that chocolate a painter of grandeurs! When Fine Art is in a man's nature, it must exude, as pitch leaks from a pine-tree. Our muskrat-hunters partook injudiciously of this unaccustomed dainty, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... to do is to fill one's life full of positive, active, beautiful things, until there is no room for the ugly intruders. And, to put it shortly, a service makes me think about other people and about God; I fear it doesn't make me contrite or sorrowful. I don't believe in any sort of self-pity, nor do I think one ought to cultivate shame; those things lie close to death, and it is life that I am in search of—fulness of life. Don't let us bemoan ourselves, or think that ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... as a horrible, murderous monster, found himself, when he returned to Kromlaix late that evening, in the sorry position of King of the Conscripts. He was a young man who had led a very solitary life, but solitude, instead of making him morbid, had strengthened his natural feelings of pity and affection. His immense physical strength had never been exerted for any evil, and even in the roughest wrestling matches he had never ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... mused; "'the horrible pit an' the miry clay.' What a sufferin' pity it is we pore sinners cayn't dance a little now and ag'in 'thout havin' to walk right up and pay the fiddler! Tom-Jeff, there, now, he's a-thinkin' the price is toler'ble high; and I don't know but it is—I don't know but what ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... a pity about your gun," said Kate. "There's some one at the gate, Harry. Hadn't you better go and see what he wants? Father won't be home until after dinner, you can ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton

... course was nearly run. Who can think of her, at the age of seventy-two, heart-broken and desolate, going back to the home of her youth in the fond expectation of finding consolation, without a pang of sympathetic pity? She found ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous

... survives is dung for the grass, The best grass on the farm. A pity the roof Will not bear a mower to mow it. But Only fowls have ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas

... Middle Ages, and indeed it seems to have been, in different forms, a popular favourite throughout Europe. Thus in a German tale Strong Hans goes to the Devil in hell and wants to serve him, and sees the pains in which souls are imprisoned standing beside the fire. Full of pity, he lifts up the lids and sets the souls free, on which the Devil at once drives him away. A somewhat similar notion occurs in an Icelandic tale of the Sin Sacks, in Powell and Magnusson's collection (second series, p. 48). And in T. Crofton Croker's "Fairy Legends and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... injury which it will take years upon years to eradicate. The misrepresentations resorted to, to obtain money to "lift him up," have spread broadcast over the land a feeling of contempt for him as a man and pity for his lowly and unfortunate condition; so that throughout the North a business man would much rather give a thousand dollars to aid in the education of the black heathen than to give a black scholar and gentleman an opportunity to honestly earn a hundred dollars. He has no ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... "I fear I have lost my husband: the doctor says there is but little hope of his life. O, madam! however I have been in the wrong, I am sure you will forgive me and pity me. I am sure I am severely punished; for to that cursed affair I ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... above the shouting of the savages. It had not died away when another and another smote upon my throbbing ear, and then I saw that these inhuman monsters were actually launching their canoe over the living bodies of their victims. But there was no pity in the breasts of these men. Forward they went in ruthless indifference, shouting as they went, while high above their voices rang the dying shrieks of those wretched creatures as, one after another, the ponderous canoe passed over them, burst the eyeballs from their sockets, ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... began to tell him that all this had happened the day after her father's funeral, her voiced trembled. She turned away, and then, as if fearing he might take her words as meant to move him to pity, looked at him with an apprehensive glance of inquiry. There were tears in Rostov's eyes. Princess Mary noticed this and glanced gratefully at him with that radiant look which caused the plainness of ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... which he was sent being driven on the coast of queen Margiana, Assad was sold to her as a slave, but being recaptured was carried back to his old dungeon. Here Bosta'na, one of the old man's daughters, took pity on him, and released him, and ere long Assad married queen Margiana, while Amgiad, out of gratitude, married Bostana.—Arabian Nights ("Amgiad ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... is very rich. They have all that they wish— and more!" ("Huk!" from the company)—"except a great many people, called poo-oor, who have not all that they wish—and who sometimes want a little more." (A groan of remonstrative pity from the audience.) "But they have not many seals, and ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... lookin' at her," went on his grandfather, "as if you was kind of wonderin' whether to laugh at her or pity her. You needn't do either. She's kind-hearted and that makes her put up with Rachel's silliness. Then, besides, Rachel herself is common sense and practical nine-tenths of the time. It's always a good idea, son, to sail one v'yage along with a person before you decide whether to class ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... breeches pockets were both turned inside out, and emptied of their contents. I stood speechless and motionless, while I was informed that it was a common-place trick for gangs of pickpockets to throw unwary passengers down with violence, pretend to pity and give them aid, pick their pockets while helping them up, and then decamp with all possible expedition. But said I, with great simplicity, to my informer, 'Will not the gentleman come back?'—'What! The man who ran off?'—'Yes.'—'Back! No, no: you will never see his face ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... may have pity on the poor girl, who will not have pity on herself, and by the explanation of a few circumstances, which cannot be mysteries to you, assist in bringing her from under the dreadful shadow that threatens to ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... the great pity I have for him. He is weak and helpless, almost child-like in his dependence on me. I am the prop which holds up the last shreds of his self-respect. If I left him, he would drift lower and lower, I know it. Sometimes I pass some awful ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... mysterious steadiness. "You want neither my respect nor my friendship," said he. "You want to amuse yourself." He pointed at her hands. "Those nails betray you." He shrugged his shoulders, laughed, said as if to a child: "You are a nice girl, Jane Hastings. It's a pity you weren't brought up to be of some use. But ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... illustrious, distinguished, and noble lady, the Marquise of Mores, wife of the deceased object of God's pity, the Marquis of Mores, who was betrayed and murdered at El Ouatia, in the country of Ghadames, salutations, penitence, and the ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... nor soul. Its corporeal existence is mythical and ethereal. It suffers neither from cold nor from hunger, has neither fear of future punishment nor hope of future reward. It takes no interest in schools or in churches. It knows neither charity nor love, neither pity nor sympathy, neither justice nor patriotism. It is deaf and blind to human woe and human happiness. Its only aim is pecuniary gain, to which it ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... "It is a pity Herman had not stayed a little longer, we might have asked him; I do not think he would have been ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... Miss? Oh, what a pity! It's a grand dinner to-night. The Earl of Ruthven is here, and it's one of her ladyship's greatest dinners ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells

... "Nearly all enemies made friends. Usurers and robbers made haste to restore ill-gotten goods, and other vicious men confessed and renounced vanity. Prisons were opened. Prisoners were released. Exiles were allowed to return. Men and women accomplished works of pity and holiness, as if they feared the all-powerful God would consume them with fire from heaven."[443] This movement was altogether popular. It broke out again in 1349, in connection with the Black Death. Flagellation for thirty-three and a half days was held ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... were my frenzied statements against the definite proofs adduced by Lord Ventnor and his unfortunate ally? Even her husband believed her and became my bitter foe. Poor woman! I have it in my heart to pity her. Well, that is all. ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... man who has a tear for the many miseries incident to humanity feel for a family illustrious as any in Europe, and unfortunate beyond historic precedent; and let every Briton (and particularly every Scotsman) who ever looked with reverential pity on the dotage of a parent, cast a veil over the fatal mistakes of the kings of ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... pity," she sighed. "So touching when a father—no matter how selfish—is wrecked by love of a thankless son. I'm sorry, indeed I am. But I warned him six years ago. Didn't ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... "Pity you were not ten minutes sooner. Barron was telling me a most amusing story of slave life in Trinidad in the old days. Wonderful fund of anecdote. But you said business or an appointment, my dear boy. Bad man to come to unless it's about ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn

... they both agreed in wanting money in spite of all their friends, and would have wanted it, if their hereditary lands had been as extensive as their imagination; yet each one of them so formed for happiness, it is a pity he was not immortal.... This Richardson is a strange fellow. I heartily despise him, and eagerly read him, nay, sob over his works in a most scandalous manner. The first two tomes of Clarissa touched me, as being very resembling to my maiden days; and I find in the ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... really shock me. It only seemed to me a pity that you should be working with so little heart and under direction that doesn't seem ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... in joyful thought of the change to be witnessed in and around that sepulchre when the family circle shall there put on incorruption, thou canst not pity us except as we pity the brief sorrows of children. If the devil should approach that spot, to work some unknown, and, to us, inconceivable, harm to that body,—be it the body of the humblest saint, one of ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams



Words linked to "Pity" :   misfortune, care, sympathise, sympathy, mercifulness, pathos, bad luck, compassionate, feel for, commiseration, compassion, fellow feeling, shame, grieve, mercy, sympathize with, sorrow, self-pity, ruth, condole with



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