Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Alexander PopeRead
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The pursuit of virtue can be challenging, leading some to settle for mere decency instead.
In this quote, Alexander Pope suggests that the pursuit of true virtue is often fraught with difficulties and can be painfully demanding. As a result, some individuals may choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of decency rather than striving for the higher, more restless ideals of virtue, ultimately reflecting on the human condition and our choices in moral living.
Themes
VirtueDecencyPainfulEndeavourHuman Condition
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on ethical living, you might reference this quote to emphasize the struggles of maintaining high moral standards.
More from Alexander Pope
All quotes βWhat dire offence from am'rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things.
Alexander PopeRead
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare; And beauty draws us with a single hair.
Alexander PopeRead
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
Alexander PopeRead
One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight;_x000D_ _x000D_ Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.
Alexander PopeRead
Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?
Alexander PopeRead
Similar quotes
The words of the Constitution... are so unrestricted by their intrinsic meaning or by their history or by tradition or by prior decisions that they leave the individual Justice free, if indeed they do not compel him, to gather meaning not from reading the Constitution but from reading life.
Felix FrankfurterRead
When I am silent, I have thunder hidden inside.
RumiRead
Put three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral, and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space is with stars.
James JeansRead
Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.
Eric HofferRead
If we wish to discuss knowledge in the most highly developed contemporary society, we must answer the preliminary question of what methodological representation to apply to that society
Jean-Francois LyotardRead
Each person is oriented toward a quest for his personal invisible guide, or . . . he entrusts himself to the collective, magisterial authority as the intermediary between himself and Revelation.
Ibn ArabiRead