Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity, if not a decadence of morals.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that a love for the color green may indicate artistic inclinations in individuals, while in societies it might reflect moral decline.
Oscar Wilde's quote highlights the complexity of the color green as a symbol of both artistic sensibilities and potential moral ambiguity. In individuals, a fondness for green can suggest creativity and a unique perspective, yet for nations, it can imply a weakening of values, suggesting that aesthetics and ethics can be interlinked in paradoxical ways.
Themes
GreenArtisticMoralsIndividualsNations
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on artistic influences in literature, one might quote Wilde to illustrate the connection between color preferences and creativity.
More from Oscar Wilde
All quotes βLondon is too full of fogs and serious people. Whether the fogs produce the serious people, or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know.
Oscar WildeRead
When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.
Oscar WildeRead
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
Oscar WildeRead
A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
Oscar WildeRead
His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
Oscar WildeRead
Similar quotes
What goes on in abstract art is the proclaiming of aesthetic principles... It is in our own time that we have become aware of pure aesthetic considerations. Art never can be imitation.
Hans HofmannRead
I don't wait to be struck by lightning and I don't need certain slants of light in order to be able to write.
Toni MorrisonRead
One of the beauties of art is that it reflects an artist's entire life. What I've learned over the past 30 years is really beginning to inform what I make. I hope that process continues until I die.
Andy GoldsworthyRead
There are beautiful sounds in rock. Very lazy, dreamlike noises. You can forget about the lyrics in most songs. Just dig the noise, and you've got your sound...We're musical primitives.
Andy WarholRead
You hope that the responsibility of making movies will fall into the hands of essentially moral people.
Sydney PollackRead
The best thing that ever happened to me is that nothing happened in writing. I ended up working for engineering companies, and that's where I found my material, in the everyday struggle between capitalism and grace. Being broke and tired, you don't come home your best self.
George SaundersRead