"There are in fact two kinds of pity. One, the feeble and sentimental kind, is really no more than the heart's impatience to free itself as quickly as possible from emotional discomfort when faced with another's misfortune; it is the sort of pity which is not at all genuine sympathy — 'shared feeling' — but merely an instinctive defense of one's own soul against the other person's pain. Then there is the other kind, which is the only one that counts — unsentimental yet constructive, knowing its own mind, fully resolved to endure everything patiently, compassionately, along with that other person, right to the very limit of its strength, and even beyond that limit."  Stefan Zweig from BEWARE OF PITY.