Sentiment/sentimentality This is a quote from one of the Dune novels (by Frank Herbert). I think it was one of the last two. The word 'roadway' was, I think, 'glazeway' in the novel, but that doesn't make much sense in the non-SF context, so I changed it.

"The difference between sentiment and sentimentality is easy to see. When you
avoid killing somebody's pet on the roadway, that's sentiment. If you swerve
to avoid the pet and that causes you to kill pedestrians, that is
sentimentality."  ¶ 1:32 AM