sympathy, n.Definitions

Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.

Sympathy is next to love, the divinest passion of the human heart.

Sympathy is charming, but it does not make up for pain.

Sympathy is often when one is in trouble, people who call to sympathize are really looking for the particulars.

Sympathy is one of the principles most widely rooted in our nature: We rejoice to see ourselves reflected in another... and, perversely enough, we sometimes have a secret pleasure in seeing the sin which dwells in ourselves existing under a deformed and monstrous aspect in another.

Sympathy is distinguished from pity in that pit is an impersonal concern (which can manifest in the mailing of a check) whereas sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul.

Sympathy makes us feel we are not accomplices to what caused the suffering. Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence. To that extent, it can be (for all our good intentions) an impertinentif not inappropriateresponse.

Sympathy is a faculty of substitution whereby we enter into the concerns of others, are moved as they are moved, and are, as it were, put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected.