“Certainly the most destructive vice, if you like, that a person can have, more than pride which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins, is self-pity. I think self-pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have, and the most destructive. It is to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, I think actually hatred is a subset of self-pity not the other way around, it destroys everything around it except itself. Self-pity will destroy relationships, it will destroy anything that’s good, it will fulfil all of the prophecies it makes and leave only itself. It’s so simple to imagine that one is hard done by, and that things are unfair, and that one is under appreciated, and that if only one had had a chance at this or that, things would have gone better, you would be happier if only this, that one is unlucky… All those things, and some of them may well even be true, but to pity oneself as a result of them is to do oneself is an enormous disservice.” —