Pathetic

Famous quotes containing the word pathetic:

    “A man’s women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom deceive them; they see the actual man within, and know him for a shallow and pathetic fellow. In this fact, perhaps, lies one of the best proofs of feminine intelligence, or, as the common phrase makes it, feminine intuition.”
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)

    “The earth had a single light afar,
    A flickering, human pathetic light,
    That was maintained against the night,
    It seemed to me, by the people there,
    With a Godforsaken brute despair.”
    —Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    “That is a pathetic inquiry among travelers and geographers after the site of ancient Troy. It is not near where they think it is. When a thing is decayed and gone, how indistinct must be the place it occupied!”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)