The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt.
Interpretation
Innocence is often more vulnerable than guilt, which tends to be shielded from scrutiny.
This quote suggests that those who are innocent often face more danger and are less likely to receive protection than those who have done wrong. It highlights the paradox of societal judgments where the guilty can find refuge within a system that may favor them, while the innocent are left exposed to the harshness of reality.
In practice
In a discussion about justice and fairness, this quote highlights the discrepancies in how innocent people are treated.
The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.
Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
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.
To understand matters rightly we should understand their details; and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect.
The advocates of retaliatory wars will continue to assume a much simpler reality with their hoary oppositions: Religious and secular, backward and enlightened, free and unfree. But if we are to admit how deeply and irrevocably interconnected our world is, then we must find new ways to break the cycle of counter-productive violence.
I also learned that a person was not necessarily bad just because you did not agree with him, and that if you believed in something, you had better be prepared to defend it.
Experience demonstrates that there may be a wages of slavery only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other.
All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.
Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are.
I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets.
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