Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
In one dancing saloon I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across. Over the piano was printed a notice: 'Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.'
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art should be appreciated rather than criticized harshly; the artist is doing their best effort.
Oscar Wilde's quote highlights the importance of understanding the effort and intention behind artistic endeavors. Instead of level-headed criticism, it advocates for a supportive and appreciative approach to art, emphasizing that artists, like the pianist, are working hard and deserve encouragement rather than disparagement.
Themes
ArtCriticismAppreciationPianoEffort
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech at an art exhibition, someone could use this quote to emphasize the need for supportive feedback.
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A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
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His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
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Similar quotes
Every natural action is graceful.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
The medium of poetry is a human body: the column of air inside the chest, shaped into signifying sounds in the larynx and the mouth. In this sense, poetry is just as physical or bodily an art as dancing.
Robert PinskyRead
Marijuana is a useful catalyst for specific optical and aural aesthetic perceptions. I apprehended the structure of certain pieces of jazz and classical music in a new manner under the influence of marijuana, and these apprehensions have remained valid in years of normal consciousness.
Allen GinsbergRead
Literary studies were no more than a series of autopsies performed by heartless technicians. Worse than autopsies: biopsies. Vivisection. Even movies, which I love more than anything, more than life itself, they even do it with movies these days.
Stephen FryRead
For me, there is a paradox in poetry, which is like the paradox in tragedy. You have the most terrible subject, but it's in a form that is so sensually gratifying that it connects the surviving heart to the despairing intellect.
Tony HarrisonRead
Faded the flower and all its budded charms,Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise!Vanishd unseasonably
John KeatsRead