A Quote by Oscar Levant

Self-pity - it's the only pity that counts.

Oscar Levant

Quote Topics

Counts Only Pity Self Self-Pity

Quote Author

Oscar Levant
American - Composer
December 27, 1906 - August 14, 1972

Pity is for this life, pity is the worm inside the meat, pity is the meat, pity is the shaking pencil, pity is the shaking voice-- not enough money, not enough love--pity for all of us--it is our grace, walking down the ramp or on the moving sidewalk, sitting in a chair, reading the paper, pity, turning a leaf to the light, arranging a thorn.

Jane Austen

Ah, children, pity level-crossing keepers, pity lock-keepers - pity lighthouse-keepers - pity all the keepers of this world (pity even school teachers), caught between their conscience and the bleak horizon.

Graham Swift

Let there be an end ... of all this welter of pity, which is only self-pity reflected onto some obvious surface.

D. H. Lawrence

What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!' Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.

J. R. R. Tolkien

All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously.

Tom Robbins

I tell people to monitor their self-pity. Self-pity is very unattractive.

Patty Duke

Truth is the only good and the purest pity. ... Men lie for profit or for pity. All lies turn to poison, but a lie that is told for pity or shame breeds such a host of ills that no power on earth can compass their redemption.

Storm Jameson

Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.

Samuel Johnson

Do not be proud of your inconsistency. It is a pity, it is a pity that we should be equipped like this. It is a pity that Man cannot be at the same time impressive and truthful.

E. M. Forster

Being able to play tragedy for humor rather than pity is a new trick I've learned. For a long time that's what I did with my poetry, ask people to feel sorry for me. I got sober and I realized I have to get out of the pity thing; it's not going anywhere for me. I don't want to have any self-pity.

Bucky Sinister

I've never understood pity and self-pity as an emotion.

Randy Pausch

I believe, as human beings, we sometimes indulge in self pity more than it's necessary. Over my life's journey, I have realised that overthinking about your problems and indulging in self-pity is not the answer to get through tough times.

Sonali Bendre

Verily, I do not like them, the merciful who feel blessed in their pity: they are lacking too much in shame. If I must pity, at least I do not want it known; and if I do pity, it is preferably from a distance.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Self-pity is the bestiality of emotions: it absolutely disgusts people. When you're feeling pity for yourself, and somebody says to you 'You think maybe it's time for the pity party to be over? You should stop feeling sorry for yourself and try to think positive,' it makes you wish you could saw their head off.

Augusten Burroughs

That is the challenge Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it. Nothing is quite so destructive as pity, especially self-pity. No event in life is so terrible that one cannot rise above it.