I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others.
MoliereRead
Esteem must be founded on some sort of preference. Bestow it on everybody and it ceases to have any meaning at all.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Esteem gains value through selectivity; universal admiration dilutes its significance.
Moliere's quote suggests that esteem or respect holds true value only when it is reserved for certain individuals based on preference and merit. When esteem is indiscriminately given to everyone without discernment, it loses its meaning and impact, as it no longer signifies anything special or noteworthy.
Themes
EsteemRespectValuePreferencesMeaning
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about personal value and self-worth.
More from Moliere
All quotes →Beauty without intelligence is like a hook without bait.
MoliereRead
Betrayed and wronged in everything, I’ll flee this bitter world where vice is king, And seek some spot unpeopled and apart Where I’ll be free to have an honest heart. - Molière, The Misanthrope
MoliereRead
Long is the road from conception to completion.
MoliereRead
Oh, I may be devout, but I am human all the same.
MoliereRead
Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.
MoliereRead
Similar quotes
The same words conceal and declare the thoughts of men.
Alfred Lord TennysonRead
Speech is a mirror of the soul: as a man speaks, so is he.
Publilius SyrusRead
History does not repeat itself. Nor does it unfold in cycles. The real future is contingent, rich beyond imagining, a perennial gobsmack, tragic and glorious in equal measure; the pundits' future, spun of 'conventional wisdom,' is only a sucker punch to that common-sense fact.
Rick PerlsteinRead
Since each person, as an individual, is the not-being of the other, it is never possible to eliminate non-understanding completely.
Friedrich SchleiermacherRead
The foundation of worship in the heart is not emotional ("I feel full of worship" or "The atmosphere is so worshipful"). Actually, it is theological. Worship is not something we "work up," it is something that "comes down" to us, from the character of God.
Sinclair B. FergusonRead
And I think, on the other end, there were actors who were not as good as I was, perhaps who could have hung in too, but began to blame everything on race.
James Earl JonesRead