Willa Cather Quotes

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

Wounded vanity knows when it is mortally hurt; and limps off the field, piteous, all disguises thrown away. But pride carries its banner to the last; and fast as it is driven from one field unfurls it in another, never admitting that there is a shade less honor in the second field than in the first, or in the third than in the second.

Sympathizing and selfish people are alike, both given to tears.

Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. The most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool.

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

I never wanted anyone's pity.

The best confidence artist makes us feel not as if we're being taken for a ride but as if we are genuinely wonderful human beings who are acting the way wonderful human beings act and getting what we deserve.

There is an inalienable law. Whenever a character on screen pities himself, the audience stops pitying him. They will cry so long as the character doesn't.

Pity, I've learned, is like a fart. You can tolerate your own, but you simply can't stand anyone else's.

Pity is easy, but it is difficult to care.

Alexia gave in to his demanding touch, but only, of course, because he sounded so pathetic. It had nothing, whatsoever to do with her own quickening heartbeat.

All pity is self-pity.

It is better to arouse envy than pity.

I would much rather fight pride than vanity, because pride has a stand-up way of fighting. You know where it is. It throws its black shadow on you, and you are not at a loss where to strike. But vanity is that delusive, that insectiferous, that multiplied feeling, and men that fight vanities are like men that fight midges and butterflies. It is easier to chase them than to hit them.

Pride differs in many things from vanity, and by gradations that never blend, although they may be somewhat indistinguishable. Pride may perhaps be termed a too high opinion of ourselves founded on the overrating of certain qualities that we do actually possess; whereas vanity is more easily satisfied, and can extract a feeling of self-complacency from qualifications that are imaginary.

Pity is an emotion that can get you killed. The only thing more dangerous is blind hate, and maybe love.

‎Pick ten strangers and stick them in a room, and ask them which of us they feel sorrier for - you or me - and we all know who they'll choose.

There are a few things that'll move people to pity, a few, but the trouble is, when they've been used several times, they no longer work.

I remember one time I tried to pity this fool. He told me his name was Jeff. He was married. He pulled out his wallet and showed me three pictures of his kids; Kelly, Robert, Brittany. Real cute kids. Don't get too close man. It's hard to pity a fool if you get too close.

Pity is the most agreeable feeling among those who have little pride and no prospects of great conquests.

There are two kinds of pity. One, the weak and sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart's impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another's unhappiness, that pity which is not compassion, but only an instinctive desire to fortify one's own soul agains the sufferings of another; and the other, the only one at counts, the unsentimental but creative kind, which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and even beyond.

People who are very vain are usually equally susceptible; and they who feel one thing acutely, will so feel another.

Every one at the bottom of his heart cherishes vanity; even the toad thinks himself good-looking,--"rather tawny perhaps, but look at his eye!

Would you hurt a man keenest strike at his self-love?

... many a heart is caught in the rebound ... Pride may be soothed by the ready devotion of another; vanity may be excited the more keenly by recent mortification.