Noun
poor thing (plural poor things)
Someone or something to be pitied
It would be a poor thing to be an atom in a universe without physicists, and physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. George Wald
The plum tree in the yard's so small It's hardly like a tree at all. Yet there it is, railed round To keep it safe and sound.The poor thing can't grow any more Though if it could it would for sure. There's nothing to be done It gets too little sun. Bertolt Brecht
It is a poor thing for the writer to take on that which he doesn't understand. Anton Chekhov
No,' he said, 'memory's a poor thing to have. It's your own real hair and mouth and arms and eyes and hands I want. I didn't know I could ever love anything so much... Philip Pullman
Nothing can be more destructive to ambition, and the passion for conquest, than the true system of astronomy. What a poor thing is even the whole globe in comparison of the infinite extent of nature! Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle
To desire to be an artist is to desire to be a complete man in respect to some one function, to realize yourself utterly. A man is a poor thing who is content not to be an artist. Charles Cooley