None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David ThoreauRead
The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that significant errors in society demand a higher moral integrity to recognize and address them.
Henry David Thoreau asserts that widespread misconceptions or errors in society can often be deeply rooted and require people to engage in selflessness and virtue to truly understand and correct them. It implies that those who can see beyond the common beliefs may possess a moral duty to guide others towards truth.
Themes
ErrorVirtueTruthSocietyIntegrity
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about social issues, one might say, 'As Thoreau suggests, addressing the prevalent errors in our society requires us to act with disinterested virtue.'
More from Henry David Thoreau
All quotes βThrough want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants.
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Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable.
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As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.
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That grand old poem called Winter
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