Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Through our sunless lanes creeps Poverty with her hungry eyes, and Sin with his sodden face follows close behind her. Misery wakes us in the morning and Shame sits with us at night.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the pervasive presence of poverty and sin in our lives, emphasizing the struggles and emotional burdens they bring.
Oscar Wilde's quote paints a vivid picture of the relentless nature of poverty and its companion, sin. He describes how they creep into our lives, highlighting that misery is a constant reminder upon waking, and shame lingers throughout the night. This powerful imagery illustrates the emotional and psychological toll that these societal issues can have on individuals, suggesting a continuous cycle of despair that affects our daily existence.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on social justice, one could emphasize understanding the impact of poverty with quote from Oscar Wilde.
More from Oscar Wilde
All quotes →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
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If everything in the environment is utterly predictable, you become bored. If it's utterly unpredictable, you become frustrated.