And, while it was regarded as pretty good evidence of criminality to be living in a slum, for some reason owning a whole street of them merely got you invited to the very best social occasions.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the hypocrisy in societal perceptions of morality and status based on wealth and living conditions.
Terry Pratchett's quote critiques societal double standards regarding criminality and wealth. It suggests that while the poor are judged harshly for their living conditions, the wealthy can engage in similarly dubious behavior without consequence, simply due to their status. This reflects a deeper commentary on how society often prioritizes wealth over morality when determining one's worth.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about social justice to illustrate the biases in society.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
God is not external to anyone, but is present with all things, though they are ignorant that He is so.
We live in the best of all possible worlds
The ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously.
Every period ruled by mystics was an era of stagnation and want, when most men were on strike against existence.
I think that a young state, like a young virgin, should modestly stay at home, and wait the application of suitors for an alliance with her; and not run about offering her amity to all the world; and hazarding their refusal. Our virgin is a jolly one; and tho at present not very rich, will in time be a great fortune, and where she has a favorable predisposition, it seems to me well worth cultivating.
Monks, when ignorance is abandoned, and knowledge arises in the monk, with the ending of ignorance and the arising of knowledge he clings neither to sense-pleasures, nor does he cling to views, nor to precepts and vows, nor to a Self-doctrine. Not clinking, he is not disturbed; not disturbed, he attains individually nibbana.
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