Concept
Pity
Overview
sympathetic sorrow evoked by the suffering of others
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Pity is discussed.
Pity is a concern for, and malice a joy in the misery of others, without any friendship or enmity to occasion this concern or joy. We pity even strangers, and such as are perfectly indifferent to us: And if our ill-will to another proceed from any harm or injury, it is not, properly speaking, malice, but revenge.
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph
There is always a mixture of love or tenderness with pity, and of hatred or anger with malice. But it must be confessed, that this mixture seems at first sight to be contradictory to my system. For as pity is an uneasiness, and malice a joy, arising from the misery of others, pity should naturally, as in all other cases, produce hatred, and malice, love. This contradiction I endeavour to reconcile, after the…
David Hume, Philosophical Works, v. 2
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph
TO WHAT EXTENT WE MUST BEWARE OF PITY.—Pity, in so far as it actually gives rise to suffering—and this must be our only point of view here—is a weakness, like every other indulgence in an injurious emotion. It increases suffering throughout the world, and although here and there a certain amount of suffering may be indirectly diminished or removed altogether as a consequence of pity, we must not bring forward these…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Dawn of Day
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
Christianity is called the religion of _pity_.--Pity stands in opposition to all the tonic passions that augment the energy of the feeling of aliveness: it is a depressant. A man loses power when he pities. Through pity that drain upon strength which suffering works is multiplied a thousandfold. Suffering is made contagious by pity; under certain circumstances it may lead to a total sacrifice of life and living…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Antichrist
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
To pity another's woes we must indeed know them, but we need not feel them. When we have suffered, when we are in fear of suffering, we pity those who suffer; but when we suffer ourselves, we pity none but ourselves. But if all of us, being subject ourselves to the ills of life, only bestow upon others the sensibility we do not actually require for ourselves, it follows that pity must be a very pleasant feeling…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile
names the idea; author linked in the graph
Philosophers who discussed Pity
Related ideas
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Geoffrey Chaucer
- Judaism
- J. R. R. Tolkien
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Rhetoric (Aristotle)
- Suffering
- Western culture
- Psychoanalysis
- Spanish language
- Mahayana
- Mysticism
- The Lord of the Rings
- Lotus Sutra
- Empathy
- Aristotle
- Compassion
- Poetics (Aristotle)
- Piety
- Christianity
- Arthur Schopenhauer
- Juvenal
- David Hume
- Discourse on Inequality
Place in the tradition
Part of Heraclitus.