What knowledge is there, of which man is capable, that is not founded on the exterior; the relation that exists between visible and invisible, the perceptible and the imperceptible?—Lavater.
Piety.—Among the many strange servilities mistaken for pieties one of the least lovely is that which hopes to flatter God by despising the world and vilifying human nature.—G. H. Lewes.
Piety softens all that courage bears.—Madame Swetchine.
Piety is a kind of modesty. It makes us turn aside our thoughts, as modesty makes us cast down our eyes in the presence of whatever is forbidden.—Joubert.
Piety is not an end, but a means of attaining the highest degree of culture by perfect peace of mind. Hence it is to be observed that those who make piety an end and aim in itself for the most part become hypocrites.—Goethe.
Pity.—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. When I am on my way to dine with a friend, and, finding it late, bid the coachman make haste, if I happen to attend when he whips his horses, I may feel unpleasantly that the animals are put to pain, but I do not wish him to desist; no, sir, I wish him to drive on.—Johnson.
Pity is sworn servant unto love, and this be sure, wherever it begin to make the way, it lets the master in.—Daniel.
Those many that need pity, and those infinities of people that refuse to pity, are miserable upon a several charge, but yet they almost make up all mankind.—Jeremy Taylor.
Of all the sisters of Love one of the most charming is Pity.—Alfred de Musset.
Place.—In place there is a license to do good and evil, whereof the latter is a curse; for in evil the best condition is not to will; the second, not to can.—Lord Bacon.