The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on how women's virtues are often linked to their desire for a peaceful life and concern for their reputation.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld's quote critiques how societal expectations can shape the perception of women's virtues, suggesting that what may appear as moral strengths are often driven by a desire to maintain a quiet life and a good reputation rather than genuine ethical principles. It challenges the reader to reflect on the superficiality of such virtues and the pressures that society places on women to conform.
Themes
VirtueReputationWomenSocietyMoral
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on gender roles, one might use this quote to highlight the societal pressures women face.
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 president is the high priest of what sociologist Robert Bellah calls the 'American civil religion.' The president must invoke the name of God (though not Jesus), glorify America's heroes and history,quote its sacred texts (the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution), and perform the transubstantiation of pluribus unum.
Jonathan HaidtRead
We who are atheists are also a-fairyists, a-teapotists, and a-unicornists, but we don't have to bother saying so.
Richard DawkinsRead
God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.
Dag HammarskjoldRead
Peace visits not the guilty mind.
JuvenalRead
How could drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on.
Antoine De Saint-ExuperyRead
The greatest tribute you can to pay to my father is to continue to train and share Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, remembering to never lose sight of the fact that what you do off the matt counts more than what you do on the matt.
Royce GracieRead