Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned.
Interpretation
Modern ideas or trends are often seen as old-fashioned over time.
Oscar Wilde's quote reflects the transient nature of modernity, suggesting that what is considered contemporary or fashionable today will inevitably be viewed as outdated in the future. This observation speaks to the cycles of change in culture, style, and thought, emphasizing that the only constant is the evolution of what is regarded as 'modern.'
In practice
In a discussion about fashion, one could quote Wilde to highlight how quickly trends can change.
Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
London 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.
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.
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardship of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die.
Here then at long last is my darkness. No cry of light, no glimmer, not even the faintest shard of hope to break free across the hold.
Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature.
Misguided people sometimes create misguided ideas. Some of my ancestors were Oromo. How can I colonize myself?
This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.
When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.
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