La Rochefoucauld §laroch_264: Pity is often a reflection of our own evils in the ills of others.

Pity is often a reflection of our own evils in the ills of others. It is a delicate foresight of the troubles into which we may fall. We help others that on like occasions we may be helped ourselves, and these services which we render, are in reality benefits we confer on ourselves by anticipation. ["Grief for the calamity of another is pity, and ariseth from the imagination that a like calamity may befal himself{;} and therefore is called compassion."--Hobbes' Leviathan{, (1651), Part I, Chapter VI}.]