Our chief defect is that we are more given to talking about things than to doing them.
Jawaharlal NehruRead
The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Those who boast about their virtues often lack true virtue.
This quote suggests that individuals who excessively praise their own moral qualities may not possess them to the extent they claim. It highlights the idea that true virtue is often demonstrated through actions rather than words, and that self-promotion can reveal insecurity and lack of genuine character.
Themes
VirtueBoastHonorCharacterSelf-Promotion
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about integrity, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of modesty.
More from Jawaharlal Nehru
All quotes →India has known the innocence and insouciance of childhood, the passion and abandon of youth, and the ripe wisdom of maturity that comes from long experience of pain and pleasure; and over and over a gain she has renewed her childhood and youth and age
Jawaharlal NehruRead
Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.
Jawaharlal NehruRead
Crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.
Jawaharlal NehruRead
What we really are matters more than what other people think of us.
Jawaharlal NehruRead
Loyal and efficient work in a great cause, even though it may not be immediately recognized, ultimately bears fruit.
Jawaharlal NehruRead
Similar quotes
At the supreme moment of his dying Jesus so identified himself with men and the depths of their predicament and agony that no man can now sink so low that God has not gone lower.
Os GuinnessRead
Lie is more worth living, more full of interest when you are likely to lose it. It shouldn't be, perhaps, but it is. When you're young and strong and healthy, and life stretches ahead of you, living isn't really important at all. It's young people who commit suicide easily, out of despair from love, sometimes from sheer anxiety and worry. But old people know how valuable life is and how interesting. - Jane Marple
Agatha ChristieRead
When I was fifteen, all I wanted was to go off to some other world, a place beyond anybody’s reach. A place beyond the flow of time.” - But there’s no place like that in this world. - Exactly. Which is why I’m living here, in this world where things are continually damaged, where the heart is fickle, where time flows past without a break.
Haruki MurakamiRead
As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.
J. K. RowlingRead
Since the notion that we should all forsake attachment to race and/or cultural identity and be “just humans” within the framework of white supremacy has usually meant that subordinate groups must surrender their identities, beliefs, values, and assimilate by adopting the values and beliefs of privileged-class whites, rather than promoting racial harmony this thinking has created a fierce cultural protectionism.
Bell HooksRead
There ain't no clean way to make a hundred million bucks.... Somewhere along the line guys got pushed to the wall, nice little businesses got the ground cut out from under them... Decent people lost their jobs.... Big money is big power and big power gets used wrong. It's the system.
Raymond ChandlerRead