The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.
Interpretation
True goodness requires the ability to choose wrong but opting for right instead; otherwise, it may be mere laziness or lack of will.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld's quote emphasizes that true moral character is determined by the capacity to commit wrongdoing and the conscious decision to refrain from it. Without the power to be wicked, one's goodness may not stem from virtue but rather from an absence of choice, akin to laziness or lack of ambition.
In practice
In a debate about ethics, one might use this quote to illustrate that true virtue requires the capacity for choice.
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.
Men make their own history but not in circumstances of their own choosing.
For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.
He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience.
Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.
When life is victorious, there is birth; when it is thwarted, there is death. A warrior is always engaged in a life-and-death struggle for Peace.
We must learn to talk with each other, and we mutually must understand and accept one another in our extraordinary differences.
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