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Pitiful Quotes

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Pitiful Quotes

“What children don't understand, and can't understand until they grow up some, is how much the whole fabric and process of human society depends on everybody agreeing to ignore, most of the time, the fact that all of us are, most of the time, inadequate, incompetent, pitiful, and, in fact, naked to our enemies. None of us really has very much in the way of spiritual, moral clothing. We dress ourselves in rags. And we agree to say nothing about it. To a very large extent, it is human charity that clothes us.”

WayHumansChildrenWholeFactsSpiritualGrowsProcessMoralEnemyGrowing UpHumilityDependsClothesDressesAgreeCharityNakedClothingsFabricInadequateHuman SocietyIncompetentRagsPitiful
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“When a man has fulfilled all four of these requisites-to be wide awake, to have fear, respect, and absolute assurance-there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his actions lose the blundering quality of the acts of a fool. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.”

IfsMenActionSufferingLostLosesMistakeQualityCourageFourFailingConditionsRegretFoolBattleRespectAccountsAbsolutesDefeatWideAwakeFulfilledAssurancePitifulWide Awake
Author:Carlos Castaneda
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“Consciousness is a pitiful hostage of its flesh-envelope, whose surges, circuits, and secret murmurings it cannot stay or speed. This is the chthonian drama that has no climax but only an enedless round, cycle upon cycle. Microcosm mirrors macrocosm. Free will is stillborn in the red cells of our body, for there is no free will in nature. Our choices come to us prepackaged and special delivery, molded by hands not our own.”

BodyHandsChoicesSecretConsciousnessSpecialDramaRedMirrorsRoundsSpeedFleshCellsCyclesFree WillDeliveryCircuitsOur ChoicesHostageEnvelopesPitifulClimaxMicrocosmMurmuring
Author:Camille Paglia
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“How vast those Orbs must be, and how inconsiderable this Earth, the Theatre upon which all our mighty Designs, all our Navigations, and all our Wars are transacted, is when compared to them. A very fit consideration, and matter of Reflection, for those Kings and Princes who sacrifice the Lives of so many People, only to flatter their Ambition in being Masters of some pitiful corner of this small Spot.”

PeopleWarMatterEarthUniverseSpaceSacrificeDesignMastersKingsFitAmbitionReflectionCornersTheatreSpotsConsiderationPitifulNavigationOrbsKings And Princes
Book:The Celestial Worlds Discover'd, Or, Conjectures Concerning the Inhabitants, Plants and Productions of the Worlds in the Planets
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“I manage because I have to. Because I've no other way out. Because I've overcome the vanity and pride of being different, I've understood that they are a pitiful defense against being different. Because I've understood that the sun shines differently when something changes. The sun shines differently, but it will continue to shine, and jumping at it with a hoe isn't going to do anything.”

WayDifferentSunPrideUnderstoodOvercomingShiningDefenseManageVanityJumpingThings ChangeBeing DifferentPitifulSun ShinesHoeVanity And Pride
Author:Andrzej Sapkowski
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“Tax time approaches, and Americans are as always paying H & R Block billions to help them save some of their wealth from their ravenous government. Pitiful, in a way: it underlines the grim but unacknowledged fact that the government is their enemy and they have to hire protection from it. But don't we enjoy 'self-government'? Well, if we have it, I'd hardly say we enjoy it. True, we aren't being taxed by the monarch of Great Britain, but our American-born rulers claim far more of our wealth than the British monarchs ever did.”

IfsWayWellsSelfFactsHelpingGovernmentEnjoyBornWealthEnemyTaxesApproachClaimsBritishProtectionBillionsBlockBritainRulersGrimMonarchsGreat BritainPitifulSelf-government
Author:Joseph Sobran
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“The vault above us is not deaf because the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless silence of an endless and aimless world. Rather the silence around us is a small and pitiful stillness like the prompt stillness of a sick room. We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy, because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken farce. We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear.”

WorldHeartChristianUniverseEnergyHeavenRoomsSilenceComedyTearsDivineLaughterAngelSickTragedyEndlessIdiotLoudOrthodoxStillnessSilence IsDeafChamberOrthodox ChristianMercifulHeartlessPromptsPitifulFranticFarceVaultsLevity
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. For one man of science, there are thousands who are not. What would have become of them? Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this.”

IfsMenHas BeensMadeMatterReligionMoralObjectsMoralityOne ManRelativeDestinedPitiful
Book:Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States
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“The current anger at the march of turbines and pylons across the hills of Britain is not from nimbys. Government money has lubricated most backyard owners to support wind power. It comes from those who appreciate the beauty of the countryside and who question the industrial spoliation of miles of open landscape for a pitiful net gain to climate change.”

GovernmentSupportWindGainsAppreciateClimateClimate ChangeCurrentsMilesHillsLandscapeBritainOwnersMarchCountrysideBackyardsPitifulTurbinesWind Power
Author:Simon Jenkins
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“This is the perpetual and pitiful tragedy of the practical man in practical affairs. He always begins with a flourish of contempt for what he calls theorizing and what people who can do it call thinking. He will not wait for logic-that is, in the most exact sense, he will not listen to reason. It will therefore appear to him an idle and ineffectual proceeding to say that there is a reason for his present failure. Nevertheless, it may be well to say it, and to try and make it clear even to him.”

PeopleThinkingMenTryingWellsMayReasonWisdomWaitingCan DoClearLogicTragedyAffairPracticalsContemptPerpetualNeverthelessIdleProceedingPitiful
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“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.”

FeelsClassMiddleFashionDangerousHabitCircumstancesSpeechTragedyPursuitMiddle ClassClothingsEmulateAdoptingPitiful
Book:Writing in restaurants
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