What is the difference between 'compassion' and 'pity'? This page of Dhamma Lists includes,


  Four Brahma-viharas (Highest Attitudes/Emotions)
  
  Heavenly or sublime abodes (best home). Near enemy is a quality that can masquerade as the original, but is not the original. Far enemy is the opposite quality.
  
  
  Lovingkindness, good-will (metta): Near enemy – attachment; far enemy – hatred
  Compassion (karuna): Near enemy – pity; far enemy – cruelty
  Sympathetic joy, Appreciation (mudita), joy at the good fortune of others: Near enemy – comparison,hypocrisy, insincerity, joy for others but tinged with identification (my team, my child); far enemy – envy
  Equanimity (upekkha): Near enemy – indifference; far enemy – anxiety, greed
  


Given that "pity is the near enemy of compassion", then what is the difference between 'compassion' and 'pity' (e.g. what is present in compassion but absent in pity, or vice versa)? Does knowledge/awareness of that difference somehow inform your intentions and/or actions?
This answer is based on my own understanding of compassion and pity.

Compassion is an honest and true way of wanting to help another being. One sees and understands this beings situation and wants to help. In this type of help there is no attachment involved. This way of helping is pure.

Pity is different. In pity there is an element of attachment present. One might even feel guilty or obliged to help. One helps because one wants to ease the bad conscience that has arisen.

So compassion is a pure and genuine wanting to help while pity is wanting to help based on attachment in order to ease ones own guilty conscience. 

If i can make a comparison then compassion is like having a real rose and taking care of it because of its gentle nature. Pity is like having a plastic rose that one does not need to give any special care.



I stumbled upon a video by Ven. Yuttadhammo that you might find useful. It's called "Ask A Monk: Compassion vs. Pity".

A little summary of it is as follows:


The question was, "It's easy to feel compassion for someone who's worse off than I am; but how can I feel compassion for someone who's better off, who I don't pity?"
The answer started by saying that the brahma viharas are meditations in their own right which you can practice if you feel yourself lacking in them; but that according to the tradition which he follows they are not considered to be crucial or essential because the more important thing is wisdom: if you have wisdom then you'll naturally be compassionate.
Compassion manifests as "non cruelty"
When someone else does evil things then you feel compassion because you know they're suffering or are going to suffer
Compassion has no bearing on whether someone people is badly off or someone is well off: it's a state of non-cruelty, it's a state of wishing to help people who are in suffering and not wishing to hurt people; it's a state that's in harmony, that's free from the evil where we do hurt other people and try to get the better of them.