Consider, further, that the wise man uses foresight, and keeps in readiness a plan of action; but what comes from a troubled source is never clear and pure. Sorrow is not adapted to the discernment of fact, to the discovery of expedients, to the avoidance of dangers, or the weighing of justice; he, consequently, will not suffer pity, because there cannot be pity without mental suffering. All else which I would have those who feel pity do, he will do gladly and with a lofty spirit; he will bring relief to another’s tears, but will not add his own; to the shipwrecked man he will give a hand, to the exile shelter, to the needy alms; he will not do as most of those who wish to be thought pitiful do — fling insultingly their alms, and scorn those whom they help and shrink from contact with them — but he will give as a man to his fellow-man out of the common store; he will grant to a mother’s tears the life of her son, the captive’s chains he will order to be broken, he will release the gladiator from his training, he will bury the carcass even of a criminal, but he will do these things with unruffled mind, and a countenance under control. The wise man, therefore, will not pity, but will succor, will benefit, and since he is born to be of help to all and to serve the common good, he will give to each his share thereof. He will extend a due measure of his goodness even to the unfortunates who deserve to be censured and disciplined; but much more gladly will he come to the rescue of the distressed and those struggling with mishap. Whenever he can, he will parry Fortune’s stroke; for in what way will he make better use of his resources or his strength than in restoring what chance has overthrown? And, too, he will not avert his countenance or his sympathy from any one because he has a withered leg, or is emaciated and in rags, and is old and leans upon a staff; but all the worthy he will aid, and will, like a god, look graciously upon the unfortunate.
Pity is akin to wretchedness; for it is partly composed of it and partly derived from it. One knows that his eyes are weak if they too are suffused at the sight of another’s blear eyes, just as always to laugh when other people laugh is, in faith, not merriment, but a disease, and for one to stretch his jaws too when everybody else yawns is a disease. Pity is a weakness of the mind that is over-much perturbed by suffering, and if anyone requires it from a wise man, that is very much like requiring him to wail and moan at the funerals of strangers.