“Pity is a mental illness induced by the spectacle of other people’s miseries, or alternatively it may be defined as an infection of low spirits caught from other people’s troubles when the patient believes that those troubles are undeserved. The sage does not succumb to suchlike mental diseases. The sage’s mind is serene and is immune from being upset by the incidence of any external force. The noblest ornament of human nature is greatness of soul; but such greatness is not compatible with grief; for grief bruises the mind and prostrates it and shrivels it up; and the sage does not allow that to happen to him – even in calamities that are his own. … Pity is next-door neighbour to pitifulness (misericordia vicina est miseriae). … Pity is a vice of minds too prone to be appalled at the sight of misery. If you expect the sage to feel pity, you might almost as well expect him to weep and wail at somebody else’s funeral” (Seneca: De Clementia, Book II, chap. 5, §§ 4-5, and chap. 6, § 4).
Translator not stated; perhaps Toynbee.
A Study of History, Vol VI, OUP, 1939 (footnote)
