What is pitiful?

Famous quotes containing the word pitiful:

    Each man, if he attempts to join himself to others, is on all sides cramped and diminished of his proportion; and the stricter the union, the smaller and the more pitiful he is. But leave him alone, to recognize in every hour and place the secret soul, he will go up and down doing the works of a true member, and, to the astonishment of all, the work will be done with concert, though no man spoke.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    If ever you prove false to one another, since I have taken such pain to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world’s end after my name; call them all Pandars.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    Life is comic or pitiful as soon as the high ends of being fade out of sight, and man becomes near-sighted, and can only attend to what addresses the senses.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)