Your favourite virtue ... Simplicity Your favourite virtue in man ... Strength Your favourite virtue in woman ... Weakness Your chief characteristic ... Singleness of purpose Your idea of happiness ... To fight Your idea of misery ... Submission The vice you excuse most ... Gullibility The vice you detest most ... Servility Your aversion ... Martin Tupper Favourite occupation ... Book-worming Favourite poet ... Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Goethe Favourite prose-writer ... Diderot Favourite hero ... Spartacus, Kepler Favourite heroine ... Gretchen [Heroine of Goethe's Faust] Favourite flower ... Daphne Favourite colour ... Red Favourite name ... Laura, Jenny Favourite dish ... Fish Favourite maxim ... Nihil humani a me alienum puto [Nothing human is alien to me] Favourite motto ... De omnibus dubitandum [Everything must be doubted].
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- A list of personal virtues, vices, preferences, and mottos reflecting individual and gendered stereotypes.
- In plain terms
- The passage catalogs personal traits and tastes.
- What can you take from it?
- Self‑knowledge involves examining both virtues and biases.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How do personal preferences shape identity?
- What stereotypes are reinforced here?
Another view
The list is idiosyncratic and may not apply broadly.
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