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.
Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.
Your soul has a single basic function-the act of valuing.
The observations and encounters of a devotee of solitude and silence are at once less distinct and more penetrating than those of the sociable man; his thoughts are weightier, stranger, and never without a tinge of sadness. Images and perceptions which might otherwise be easily dispelled by a glance, a laugh, an exchange of comments, concern him unduly, they sink into mute depths, take on significance, become experiences, adventures, emotions.
I am a deeply superficial person.
Sin is cruelty and injustice, all else is peccadillo. Oh, a sense of sin comes from violating the customs of your tribe. But breaking custom is not sin even when it feels so; sin is wronging another person.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.
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