“Pity preserves things that are ripe for decline, it defends things that have been disowned and condemned by life, and it gives a depressive and questionable character to life itself by keeping alive an abundance of failures of every type"

- Friedrich Nietzsche

I don't know if I agree with this
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@sun If I remember correctly Nietzsche distinguished between pity and sympathy. Sympathy is the desire to help others while pity is pain you feel at someone else's wretchedness. So pity is not compassionate, it is actually a self centered and base emotion in his view. He is not against helping or caring for others. He says things like "Everyone should give to the poor but beggars should be abolished" because giving out of compassion is a higher act while giving to ease the pain you feel at a beggars wretchedness is abase act.

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