This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Jules de Goncourt, fully Jules Huot de Goncourt
How utterly futile debauchery seems once it has been accomplished, and what ashes of disgust it leaves in the soul! The pity of it is that the soul outlives the body, or in other words that impression judges sensation and that one thinks about and finds fault with the pleasure one has taken.
Fault | Impression | Pity | Pleasure | Soul | Words | Fault |
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
Heaven arms with pity those whom it would not see destroyed.
Pity |
The Emotional Centre is not born with a negative part — it should not be there, but it is acquired by the influence of people who are negative. By contact with adults a child learns to pity itself, to feel grievances, to speak crossly, to dwell on its misfortunes, to be melancholy, moody, irritable, suspicious, jealous, to hurt others, etc. This dreadful infection of a child is something against which nothing can be done because it is not clearly recognized. This infection forms the negative part in Emotional Centre. And this infection is handed on from generation to generation.
Metastasio, aka Pietro Petastasio, pseudonymn for Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi NULL
If every man's internal care Were written on his brow, How many would our pity share Who raise our envy now?
Man's new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct . The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny. A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal.
Civilization | Guidance | Instinct | Marriage | Method | Opinion | Pity | Race | Sense | Will | Guidance | Parent |
Philip Larkin, fully Philip Arthur Larkin
There is bad in all good authors: what a pity the converse isn't true!
Pope Pius XI, born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti NULL
However we may pity the mother whose health and even life is imperiled by the performance of her natural duty, there yet remains no sufficient reason for condoning the direct murder of the innocent.
Health | Life | Life | Mother | Murder | Pity | Reason | Murder |
R. W. Dixon, fully Richard Watson Dixon
HAST thou no right to joy, O youth grown old! who palest with the thought Of the measureless annoy, The pain and havoc wrought By Fate on man: and of the many men, The unfed, the untaught, Who groan beneath that adamantine chain Whose tightness kills, whose slackness whips the flow Of waves of futile woe: Hast thou no right to joy? Thou thinkest in thy mind In thee it were unkind To revel in the liquid Hyblian store, While more and more the horror and the shame, The pity and the woe grow more and more, Persistent still to claim The filling of thy mind.
Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson
For the sense of smell, almost more than any other, has the power to recall memories and it is a pity that you use it so little.
Raymond Chandler, fully Raymond Thornton Chandler
In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.
Rebecca West, pen name of Mrs. Cicily Maxwell Andrews, born Fairfield, aka Dame Rebecca West
It is a great pity that every human being does not, at an early stage of his life, have to write a historical work. He would then realize that the human race is in quite a jam about truth.
Human race | Pity | Race |
Red Jacket, aka Sagoyewatha NULL
But an evil day came upon us. Your forefathers crossed the great waters and landed on this island. Their numbers were small. They found friends and not enemies. They told us they had fled from their own country for fear of wicked men, and had come here to enjoy their religion. They asked for a small seat. We took pity on them, granted their request, and they sat down amongst us. We gave them corn and meat; they gave us poison in return.
Richard Wagner, fully Wilhelm Richard Wagner
Property has acquired an almost greater sacredness in our social conscience than religion: for offence against the latter there is lenience, for damage to the former no forgiveness. Since Property is deemed the base of all stability, the more's the pity that not all are owners, that in fact the greater proportion of Society comes disinherited into the world. Society is manifestly thus reduced by its own principle to such a perilous inquietude, that it is compelled to reckon all its laws for an impossible adjustment of this conflict; and protection of property
Conscience | Pity | Property | Society | Society |
Perigrination charms our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety that some count him that never traveled--a kind of prisoner, and pity his case: that, from his cradle to his old age, he beholds the same still, still,--still, the same, the same.
Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
My creed: To love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the suffering, to assist the weak, to forget wrongs and remember benefits, to love the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to wage relentless war against slavery in all its forms, to love family and friend, to make a happy home, to love the beautiful in art, in nature, to cultivate the mind, to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that genius has expressed, the noble deeds of all the world; to cultivate courage and cheerfulness, to make others happy, to fill life with the splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving words; to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with gladness, to cultivate hope, to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the night, to do the best that can be done and then be resigned. This is the religion of reason, the creed of science. This satisfies the brain and the heart.
Courage | Creed | Dawn | Deeds | Destroy | Family | Genius | Happy | Life | Life | Love | Pity | Receive | Religion | Slavery | War | Deeds | Truths |
Robert Service, fully Robert William Service
Let poets piece prismatic words, Give me the jewelled joy of birds! What ecstasy moves them to sing? Is it the lyric glee of Spring, The dewy rapture of the rose? Is it the worship born in those Who are of Nature's self a part, The adoration of the heart? Is it the mating mood in them That makes each crystal note a gem? Oh mocking bird and nightingale, Oh mavis, lark and robin - hail! Tell me what perfect passion glows In your inspired arpeggios? A thrush is thrilling as I write Its obligato of delight; And in its fervour, as in mine, I fathom tenderness divine, And pity those of earthy ear Who cannot hear . . . who cannot hear. Let poets pattern pretty words: For lovely largesse - bless you, Birds!
Ecstasy | Joy | Passion | Pity | Self | Tenderness | Worship |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT - Propound a mystery, O my tongue, and give praise to God, For He hath delivered me and exalted my horn. Awake, my heart, and turn to the Almighty, And in awe of His anger let my hand be lifted to Him. Set the Most High before thee, and know that every thought And every hidden imagining are to Him not hidden. Dread the day of His wrath, and the dreadful position Wherein is help or refuge for no creature. On the day He shall judge the peoples and destroy beings And wither all His adversaries as with the fiery blast of his nostrils And decree the fate of all potentates, officers and rulers, Nor pay regard to mighty princes. And destroy tyrants and cut off the scornful, The proud and presumptuous who rely on the preciousness of their palanquin; Who have forgotten their Creator and put their trust in their riches And prided themselves above high God, Who humbleth and uplifteth, And have rebelled against their Master, With their host and their multitude, And the silver they have acquired, and the fine gold and sapphires, And have built structures, and carved out windows, And erected palaces, and battlements and chambers, Nor remember the Almighty, But wax fat in the abundance of power, And speak arrogantly to Him And roar like young lions. But He is great and fearful, And girded about with might; He calleth the generations And from Him are the hill-tops. Doth He not regard the lowly, And abase every one that is proud? He will raise up the broken pauper And lift him from the dunghill. Woe to them for this, When their Creator shall sit in judgment, To take vengeance on them, their grown and their little ones, And they shall fall into the net, weeping bitterly, And when quaffing the cup of foaming wine Shall drain only dregs, And shall be consumed in their iniquity, And their riches shall not profit them, And all they build shall be upset As though overthrown by strangers. And the God of the ages will abhor the man of blood And will break the haughty Like a potter’s vessel, And will bring low their pride And silence their psaltery And make their voice sound Like a ghost from the dust, And demolish their battlements And their houses of pleasure, And make over their inheritance To strangers and aliens, And the gadfly shall sting them To determined destruction, And they shall be trodden of passers-by Like a ground or a street. Therefore turn ye from them and their counsels, Nor vie with them Lest your fate be as that of these arrogant.
Fighting | Forgiveness | Guile | Justice | Man | Mercy | Pity | Prayer | Sin | Wrong | Forgiveness | Old |