The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt.
Interpretation
Innocence is often more vulnerable than guilt, which tends to be shielded from scrutiny.
This quote suggests that those who are innocent often face more danger and are less likely to receive protection than those who have done wrong. It highlights the paradox of societal judgments where the guilty can find refuge within a system that may favor them, while the innocent are left exposed to the harshness of reality.
In practice
In a discussion about justice and fairness, this quote highlights the discrepancies in how innocent people are treated.
The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.
Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.
To understand matters rightly we should understand their details; and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect.
We're all imperfect, and life is simply a perpetual, unending struggle against those imperfections.
The need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution.
I'll never get used to anything. Anybody that does they might as well be dead.
Fear, prejudice, malice, and the love of approbation bribe a thousand men where gold bribes one.
There is nothing to save, now all is lost, but a tiny core of stillness in the heart like the eye of a violet.
That Hegelian dialectics should provide a wonderful instrument for always being right, because they permit the interpretations of all defeats as the beginning of victory, is obvious. One of the most beautiful examples of this kind of sophistry occurred after 1933 when the German Communists for nearly two years refused to recognize that Hitler's victory had been a defeat for the German Communist Party.
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