Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are alw…

Samuel Johnson
884 citations
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. ✨ Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales.
Life
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Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him. ✨ In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 2, p. 166 (31 March 1772)
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