Daily Inspiration Quote by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

A Sheridan line like this snaps shut like a well-made trap: it looks like a moral aphorism, then pivots into a social weapon. "Pity those who nature abuses" invites the audience to extend compassion to people dealt a rough hand by circumstance, body, birth, or fortune. Then comes the blade: "never those who abuse nature". The symmetry is the joke and the judgment. By flipping "nature" from agent to victim, Sheridan turns sentimentality into discrimination. Compassion is not a blanket; it is a verdict.

The intent is pointedly theatrical. Sheridan wrote for a culture that loved to congratulate itself on refinement while feeding on scandal and cruelty. The line slices through that hypocrisy: do not waste tears on the self-made villain, the person who manipulates, preys, or performs injured innocence after choosing harm. It's a rebuke to the fashionable pastime of excusing bad behavior as "just how people are". Sheridan insists on a distinction between misfortune and misconduct, between being damaged and doing damage.

The subtext carries a whiff of Enlightenment moral accounting: nature can be harsh, but it is not culpable; humans are, because they can choose. At the same time, the phrasing is slyly elastic. "Abuse nature" can mean cruelty to others (human nature), violation of social norms, or literal exploitation of the natural world. That ambiguity gives the line its longevity: it flatters the audience into thinking they know exactly which offenders deserve no pity, while daring them to notice how often society pities power and punishes vulnerability.