That chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Burke describes a sense of honor so pure that even a stain feels like a wound.
- In plain terms
- True honor feels pain from even a small stain.
- What can you take from it?
- Honor requires deep sensitivity to reputation.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Is honor more important than truth?
Another view
Obsessing over honor can harm practical life.
More from Edmund Burke
The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!
Permalink to quote #102 Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.
Permalink to quote #104 Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.
Permalink to quote #101
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