There are many sham diamonds in this life which pass for real, and vice versa.
William Makepeace ThackerayRead
The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.
Interpretation
People often accept vice in society but react strongly against openly acknowledging it.
In this quote, Thackeray points out the hypocrisy of human nature regarding morality and vice. While society may tolerate immoral behavior, there is a strong aversion to directly labeling such behavior as immoral, revealing the discomfort people have with the truth about their own or others' flaws.
In practice
In a discussion about ethical behavior in business, this quote could highlight the reluctance to confront issues.
There are many sham diamonds in this life which pass for real, and vice versa.
There's a great power of imagination about these little creatures, and a creative fancy and belief that is very curious to watch . . . I am sure that horrid matter-of-fact child-rearers . . . do away with the child's most beautiful privilege. I am determined that Anny shall have a very extensive and instructive store of learning in Tom Thumbs, Jack-the-Giant-Killers, etc.
When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise.
And in those varieties of pain of which we spoke anon, what a part of confidante has that poor teapot played ever since the kindly plant was introduced among us! What myriads of women have cried over it, to be sure! What sickbeds it has smoked by! What fevered lips have received refreshment from out of it! Nature meant very gently by women when she made that teaplant; and with a little thought what a series of pictures and groups the fancy may conjure up and assemble round the teapot and cup!
The play is done; the curtain drops,_x000D_ _x000D_ Slow falling to the prompter's bell_x000D_ _x000D_ A moment yet the actor stops_x000D_ _x000D_ And looks around to say farewell.
it is the ordinary lot of people to have no friends if they themselves care for nobody
For the historian everything begins and ends with time, a mathematical, godlike_x000D_ _x000D_ time, a notion easily mocked, time external to men, 'exogenous,' as economists_x000D_ _x000D_ would say, pushing men, forcing them, and painting their own individual times_x000D_ _x000D_ the same color: it is, indeed, the imperious time of the world.
Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.
Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.
I had, by thirteen, developed a sort of Taoist hubris about my ability to control via non-control.
Christian minds have been conformed to the modern spirit: the spirit, that is, that spawns great thoughts of man and leaves room for only small thoughts of God.
Belief must be something different from a mixture of opinions about God and the world, and of precepts for one life or for two. Piety cannot be an instinct craving for a mess of metaphysical and ethical crumbs.
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