What is pitiable?

Famous quotes containing the word pitiable:

    “you were with me all day; stood with me, sat with me, talked with me, looked at me, ate with me, drank with me; and yet, your last act was to clutch for a monster, not only an innocent man, but the most pitiable of all men. So far may even the best man err, in judging the conduct of one with the recesses of whose condition he is not acquainted.”
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    I am in the pitiable situation of feeling all the force of temptation without having the strength to succumb to it.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)