Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Being discussed is preferable to being ignored, as it indicates presence and impact in society.
This quote by Oscar Wilde emphasizes the importance of recognition and the desire for social engagement. Being the subject of conversation, whether positively or negatively, suggests that one has made an impression or connection with others, whereas the absence of such dialogue signifies a lack of significance in social dynamics.
Themes
RecognitionImpactConversationSocialExistence
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of public opinion, I might say this quote to illustrate the power of conversation.
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
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The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.
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Has not the experience of two centuries shown that gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice? Is there an instance, in the history of the world, where slaves have been educated for freedom by their task-masters?
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Even such isTime, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days, And from which earth, and grave, and dust The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
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