"I believe that pity is a law..." - Quote by Victor Hugo
I believe that pity is a law like justice, and that kindness is a duty like uprightness. That which is weak has a right to the kindness and pity of that which is strong. In the relations of man with the animals...there is a great ethic, scarcely perceived as yet, which will at length break through into the light, and which will be the corollary and the complement to humans ethics. Are there not here unsounded depths for the thinker? Is one to think oneself mad because one has the sentiment of universal pity in one's heart?
More by Victor Hugo
“A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.”
“Emergencies have always been necessary to progress. It was darkness which produced the lamp. It was fog that produced the compass. It was hunger that drove us to exploration. And it took a depression to teach us the real value of a job.”
“The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination.”
More on Compassion
“Sorrow is too great to exist in small hearts.”
“It seems that for some people the idea of compassion entails a complete disregard for or even a sacrifice of their own interests. This is not the case. In fact, you first of all have to have a wish to be happy yourself - if you don't love yourself like that, how can you love others?”
“During my medical education at the University of Basle I found vivisection horrible, barbarous and above all unnecessary”
More on Pity
“A person must have a good memory to keep the promises he has made. A person must have a strong imagination to be able to have pity. So closely is morality tied to the quality of the intellect.”
“That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society.”
“But miserable most, to love unloved? This you should pity rather than despise”