The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the interconnectedness of individuals and the world, suggesting that neither can exist independently of the other.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld's quote reflects on the mutual dependency between individuals and the broader world. It points out that those who believe they can isolate themselves from societal influences are fooling themselves, while those who underestimate their significance in the world are equally mistaken. This highlights the importance of recognizing the relationship between self and society, underscoring that each person plays a crucial role in shaping the world as much as the world influences the individual.
Themes
InterconnectednessSocietySelfDependencyInfluence
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about social responsibility, you might use this quote to illustrate the importance of community.
More from Francois De La Rochefoucauld
All quotes βOld men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
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.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
To understand matters rightly we should understand their details; and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
Similar quotes
I do not like Moscow life. You live here not as you want to live, but as old women want you to.
Alexander PushkinRead
The problem is one of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality. But often what appears to a more subjective point of view cannot be accounted for in this way. So either the objective conception of the world is incomplete, or the subjective involves illusions that should be rejected.
Thomas NagelRead
I sat in the gradually chilling room, thinking of my whole past the way a drowning man is supposed to, and it seemed part of the present, part of the gray cold and the beggar woman without a face and the moulting birds frozen to their own filth in the Orangerie. I know now I was in the throes of some small glandular crisis, a sublimated bilious attack, a flick from the whip of melancholia, but then it was terrifying...nameless...
M. F. K. FisherRead
This truth may be unfashionable, unpalatable, no doubt unpopular, but, if it is the truth, the story of mankind shows that war was universal and unceasing for millions of years before armaments were invented or armies organized. Indeed, the lucid intervals of peace and order only occurred in human history after armaments in the hands of strong governments have come into being, and civilization in every age has been nursed only in cradles guarded by superior weapons and superior discipline.
Winston ChurchillRead
I sat at the foot of a huge tree, a statue of the night, and tried to make an inventory of all I had seen, heard, smelled, and felt: dizziness, horror, stupor, astonishment, joy, enthusiasm, nausea, inescapable attraction. What had attracted me? It was difficult to say: Human kind cannot bear much reality.
Octavio PazRead
Oh, I may be devout, but I am human all the same.
MoliereRead