The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that we often criticize others' vanity because it threatens our own sense of self-importance.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld's quote highlights the inherent hypocrisy in human behavior, where we are quick to judge others for their vanity and superficiality, yet fail to recognize how similar tendencies exist within ourselves. This reflection on human nature indicates that our disdain for others' pride often stems from an insecurity about our own, revealing a deeper commentary on self-perception and social dynamics.
Themes
VanitySelf-PerceptionHypocrisyPrideHuman Nature
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about social media and self-image, this quote can illustrate why people often criticize influencers for vanity.
More from Francois De La Rochefoucauld
All quotes βOld men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
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.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
To understand matters rightly we should understand their details; and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
Similar quotes
the more i live, the more i realize what strange creatures human beings are. some of them might just as well have a hundred legs, like a centipede, or six, like a lobster. the human consistency and dignity one has been led to expect from one's fellow-man seem actually non-existent. one doubts if they exist to any startling degree even in oneself.
D. H. LawrenceRead
Oh, Creator! Can monsters exist in the sight of him who alone knows how they were invented, how they invented themselves, and how they might not have invented themselves?
Charles BaudelaireRead
More and more people work on Sundays as a consequence of the competitiveness imposed by a consumer society.
Pope FrancisRead
We have been basically persuaded that we should not talk about racism.
Angela DavisRead
There are metaphysical problems, problems of human existence, that philosophy has never known how to grasp in all their concreteness and that only the novel can seize.
Milan KunderaRead
Modern definitions of truth, such as those as pragmatism and instrumentalism, which are practical rather than contemplative, are inspired by industrialisation as opposed to aristocracy.
Bertrand RussellRead