Life & Wisdom Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

A maxim like this is less a pronouncement about women than a performance of aristocratic suspicion. La Rochefoucauld writes as the great anatomist of motives, the court’s resident X-ray machine, trained in an ecosystem where appearances were currency and sincerity was a liability. So he aims his blade at “virtue,” not as an ethical achievement but as a social strategy: a way to avoid hassle (“their own quiet”) and preserve social standing (“reputation”). The sting is in “nothing but” - the phrase that turns moral language into mere self-management.

The specific intent is provocation dressed as clarity. By targeting “women’s virtue,” he picks a site where virtue was policed most visibly and punished most brutally. That’s the subtext: in a world where women’s options are constrained, “virtue” becomes less a free choice than a survival tactic. He pretends to demystify female morality while quietly describing the incentives men and institutions created: keep the peace, keep your name intact, or pay the price.

It works because it flatters the reader’s cynicism. You’re invited to feel smarter than the moralists, to imagine you’re immune to hypocrisy because you can spot it. Yet the line also reveals the author’s own bias: virtue is treated as suspect the moment it overlaps with self-interest, as if morality only counts when it’s inconvenient. La Rochefoucauld’s courtly realism lands like a truth grenade, but it also smuggles in a convenient alibi for male misconduct: if women’s virtue is “reputation management,” then everyone’s just playing the same game.