Beware of Pity

by Stefan Zweig

it would not relieve the distress of a single human being if yet another were to torment himself needlessly.

You’re one of those so-called “good” people,

one who, because of the instability of his emotions, because of a certain impatience of the heart, is a thoroughly unreliable colleague.

For vanity, too, inebriates; gratitude, too, intoxicates; tenderness, too, can blissfully confuse the senses.