What a pity is it That we can die but once to serve our country!

-Addison,Joseph
  Cato, act 4, sc.1, l.258^9.

Tragedy isthus a representationof anactionthat isworth serious attention, complete in itself and of some amplitude†by means of pityand fear bringing about the purgation of such emotions.

-Aristotle
c.330  BC  Poetics, ch.6.

La haine est un tonique, elle fait vivre, elle inspire la vengeance; mais la pitie¤   tue, elle affaiblit encore notre faiblesse. Hatred isa tonic, it makes one live, it inspires vengeance; but pity kills, it weakens our weaknesses still further.

-Balzac, Honore¤   de
La Peau de chagrin.

Up the hill where stucco houses inVirginia creeper drownö And my childish wave of pity, seeing children carrying down Sheaves of drooping dandelions to the courts of Kentish Town.

-Betjeman, SirJohn
  New Bats in Old Belfries,'Parliament Hill Fields'.

He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the L; and that which he hath given will he pay him again.

-Bible (Old Testament)
ORDProverbs19:17.

For Mercy has a human heart Pity a human face: And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress.

-Blake,William
  Songs of Innocence,'The Divine Image'.

And all must love the human form, In heathen,Turk or Jew; Where mercy, Love and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too.

-Blake,William
  Songs of Innocence,'The Divine Image'.

Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from yourdoor.

-Blake,William
  Songs of Innocence,'Holy Thursday'.

Thy rebukehath brokenmy heart;Iam full of heaviness: I looked for some to have pity on me, but there was no man, neither found I any to comfort me. They gave me gall to eat: and when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink.

-Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 69:21^2.

  Pity is lost in rage and fear.

-Carlyle,Thomas
  History of the French Revolution, vol.3, bk.2, ch.7.

Pitee renneth soone in gentil herte.

-Chaucer, Geoffrey
  Canterbury  Tales,'The Knight's Tale', l.1761.

When I die people will say it is the best thing for me. It is because they know it is the worst. They want to avoid the feeling of pity.

-Compton-Burnett, Dame Ivy
The Mighty and Their Fall, ch.4.

Kind pity chokes my spleen.

-Donne,John
^5  Satires, no.3.

Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail: But common interest always will prevail: And pity never ceases to be shown To him, who makes the people's wrongs his own.

-Dryden,John
Absalom and  Achitophel, pt.1, l.723^6.

La parole humaine est comme un chaudron fe"  le¤   o  u' nous battons des me¤  lodies a'   faire danser les ours, quand on voudrait attendrir les e¤  toiles. Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when all the time we are longing to move the stars to pity.

-Flaubert, Gustave
  Madame Bovary, pt.1, ch.12.

Of one so young, so rich in nature's store, Who could not say,'tis pity she's a whore?

-Ford,John
  ' Tis Pity She's a Whore, act 5, sc.6.

And if youare wise you will never pity thepast for what it did not know, but pity yourself for what it did.

-Fowles,John Robert
  The Magus, ch.24.

Julia: how Irishly you sacrifice Love to pity, pity to ill-humour, Yourself to love, still haggling at the price.

-Graves, Robert von Ranke
'Reproach to  Julia', collected in Collected Poems (1959).

Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry. The subject of it is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.

-Owen,Wilfred
  Poems (published1920), preface.

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

-Pope, Alexander
  An Essay on Man, epistle 2, l.217^19.