I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others.
MoliereRead
Esteem must be founded on some sort of preference. Bestow it on everybody and it ceases to have any meaning at all.
Interpretation
Esteem gains value through selectivity; universal admiration dilutes its significance.
Moliere's quote suggests that esteem or respect holds true value only when it is reserved for certain individuals based on preference and merit. When esteem is indiscriminately given to everyone without discernment, it loses its meaning and impact, as it no longer signifies anything special or noteworthy.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal value and self-worth.
I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others.
Beauty without intelligence is like a hook without bait.
Betrayed and wronged in everything, I’ll flee this bitter world where vice is king, And seek some spot unpeopled and apart Where I’ll be free to have an honest heart. - Molière, The Misanthrope
Long is the road from conception to completion.
Oh, I may be devout, but I am human all the same.
Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.
That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.
Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams and lies, while random careless chance and change alone control the world?
So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences in this world, that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants.
If the philosophy of Christianity were lived, wars would cease, unhappiness would cease, economic problems would be solved, poverty would be wiped from the face of the earth, and man's inhumanity to man would be transmuted into a spirit of mutual helpfulness.
The world, although well-lighted with fluorescents and incandescent bulbs and neon, is still full of odd dark corners and unsettling nooks and crannies.
Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life.
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