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If you wish me well, do not stand pitying me, but lend me some succour as fast as you can; for pity is but cold comfort when one is up to the chin in water, and within a hair's breadth of starving or drowning.

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Sympathy

More quotes by Aesop

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.

Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.

A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

Enemies' promises were made to be broken.

All Aesop quotes →

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A pity beyond all telling
Is hid in the heart of love.

William Butler Yeats The Pity Of Love in The Rose (1893)

O, brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother;
where pity dwells, the peace of God is there.

John Greenleaf Whittier

The craving for sympathy is the common boundary-line between joy and sorrow.

Julius Hare Guesses at Truth (1827)

Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.

Ian Maclaren

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Aesop (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.