What's the difference between compassion and pity?

Compassion


Definition:

  • (n.) Literally, suffering with another; a sensation of sorrow excited by the distress or misfortunes of another; pity; commiseration.
  • (v. t.) To pity.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) I woke up yesterday morning with an inbox, in full capacity of love and compassion,” she wrote.
  • (2) These boys showed a lack of compassion to our daughter and to their community as a whole."
  • (3) Speaking at a film festival in Dubai he said: "My compass has not stopped spinning," referring to the many policy switches made by the party he previously supported.
  • (4) The letter is particularly striking given that some of signatories are on the party's centre right, such as Progress and Policy Network, and others on the left, such as key figures at Compass and Class.
  • (5) Male eastern red-spotted newts (Notophthalmus viridescens) under controlled laboratory conditions exhibit unimodal magnetic compass orientation either in a trained compass direction or in the direction of their home pond.
  • (6) The grand mufti of Australia, Ibrahim Abu Mohammad, said Islam did not need a reformation “since the normative principles and practices of the religion allow Muslims to harmoniously coexist within pluralist societies that are based on the universal values of compassion and justice”.
  • (7) What it says is that their moral code is lacking any kind of compass we can endorse,” said Sharan Burrow, the Ituc general secretary.
  • (8) There has been a great deal of media coverage about the need for staff to demonstrate compassion.
  • (9) It seems that Mrs May’s vicarage upbringing has left her more than a little lacking in Christian compassion.
  • (10) When Malcolm Turnbull was asked about Asha specifically he said he wouldn’t comment on individual cases but that we’ll be treating all people with compassion.
  • (11) What an inspiration: teaching us all to embrace life, look after each other, and have love and compassion no matter what May 14, 2014 Comedian Jason Manford, who championed Stephen's cause and helped him surpass his fundraising goal, released a statement on Wednesday afternoon: Guardian readers have also added their tributes in the comments of the article about his death, with one reflecting on the way Stephen mastered social media in order to raise money for charity and document his story.
  • (12) I’m sure if my father was around, if he had the opportunity to meet her he would be reminding her that compassion was important, that ethics in public life was important, and that compromise was important.
  • (13) Staff do not always honour the pledge on compassion in the NHS Constitution to "respond with humanity and kindness to each person's pain, distress, anxiety or need", he added.
  • (14) More than that, the proposition acts as a compass for Labour policy proposals ie: "How does a particular policy contribute towards work, public income and a caring society?"
  • (15) In a letter to the prime minister he urged Cameron to show “compassion and human kindness” .
  • (16) It is essential, then, in order to lessen the tendency toward neurosis, that such women be treated with compassion, competence, patience and psychiatric care, and that they be made fully aware of surgical procedures and its consequences, as well as the advantages of eugenics.
  • (17) It's music that defines compassion, lament, and loss, to which you can only surrender in moist-eyed wonder.
  • (18) But there is a difference between knowledge of other peoples and other times that is the result of understanding, compassion, careful study and analysis for their own sakes, and on the other hand knowledge that is part of an overall campaign of self-affirmation.
  • (19) For our government at the highest levels to suggest that when it comes to asylum seekers at sea there is no moral compass and no moral limit is not only astonishing and appalling but completely unacceptable,” he said.
  • (20) The norms, practices and capabilities of teams contribute to the formation of effective working relationships and determine whether there is a micro-climate that allows compassion to thrive.

Pity


Definition:

  • (n.) Piety.
  • (n.) A feeling for the sufferings or distresses of another or others; sympathy with the grief or misery of another; compassion; fellow-feeling; commiseration.
  • (n.) A reason or cause of pity, grief, or regret; a thing to be regretted.
  • (v. t.) To feel pity or compassion for; to have sympathy with; to compassionate; to commiserate; to have tender feelings toward (any one), awakened by a knowledge of suffering.
  • (v. t.) To move to pity; -- used impersonally.
  • (v. i.) To be compassionate; to show pity.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The voters don’t do gratitude, self-pitying politicians are wont to moan.
  • (2) With grievous amazement, never self-pitying but sometimes bordering on a sort of numbed wonderment, Levi records the day-to-day personal and social history of the camp, noting not only the fine gradations of his own descent, but the capacity of some prisoners to cut a deal and strike a bargain, while others, destined by their age or character for the gas ovens, follow "the slope down to the bottom, like streams that run down to the sea".
  • (3) "); hopeless self-pity ("Nobody said anything to me about Billy ... all day long") and rage ("You want to put a bench in the park in Billy's name?
  • (4) Indeed, mainstream economics is a pitifully thin distillation of historical wisdom on the topics that it addresses.
  • (5) Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?” It is there to remind him that the dots are worth fighting for.
  • (6) Last year, Amnesty International described the world’s response as “pitiful” and earlier this week, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants called on the EU to deliver a proper resettlement programme.
  • (7) April's family had to endure the "spectacle of your hypocritical sympathy for their loss and of your tears", the judge told Bridger, saying any tears were motivated purely by self-pity.
  • (8) And this is the mainspring of so many of his stories, novellas, and his one novel, Beware of Pity : the clash between propriety and desire.
  • (9) It’s actually a pity that there’s now a break because I wanted to continue playing games,” said the Italian.
  • (10) In his final fight, against the journeyman boxer Kevin McBride, he was a pitiful figure - slumped in a corner, legs splayed, unable or unwilling to stand himself up.
  • (11) Other negative emotions – self-pity, guilt, apathy, pessimism, narcissism – make it a deeply unattractive illness to be around, one that requires unusual levels of understanding and tolerance from family and friends.
  • (12) He said it was a “pity” that the UK prime minister “wasn’t able to express the British position at the press conference with Donald Trump standing next to her”.
  • (13) As the turbulent commercial radio sector enters another new phase, Park wants to sweep away the thinking that has left too many of his colleagues wallowing in self-pity, and turn his fire on a familiar target.
  • (14) Broadly defined, this sort of behaviour involves procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, obstructionism, self-pity and a tendency to create chaotic situations.
  • (15) It is a pity we did not take our chances,” the Ukraine coach, Mykhailo Fomenko, said.
  • (16) "This depressing morning has now got me questioning my pitiful existence," sobs James Dodge.
  • (17) Foreign dignitaries were invited to attend for the first time and it is a pity that from Europe only Javier Solana chose to take the offer up.
  • (18) Men convicted of rape are often pitied in the media and, like Evans, quickly vault back to positions of fame .
  • (19) But after the strange denials that this old, sick man is dying I want to talk not with pity but of his power.
  • (20) Staff here dread the welfare reform bill, waiting for debts, arrears, evictions and pitiful hardship to wash up on their doorstep.