Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
The sure way of knowing nothing about life is to try to make oneself useful.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Attempting to be useful often leads to misunderstanding life's complexities.
This quote from Oscar Wilde suggests that the pursuit of being useful can limit our understanding of life itself. It implies that focusing solely on practicality or utility may lead to a superficial grasp of deeper truths and the richness of human experience, indicating that wisdom comes from broader contemplation and engagement with life rather than just functionality.
Themes
WisdomLifeKnowledgeUtilityExperience
In practice
Example use cases
A philosopher discussing the complexities of existence might reference this quote.
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.
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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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Your mental attitude is the most dependable key to your personality.
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Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.
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Our intentions may be very good, but, because the intelligence is limited, the action may turn out to be a mistake - a mistake, but not necessarily a sin, for sin comes out of a wrong intention.
E. Stanley JonesRead
O Seeker, pain and suffering make one aware of God.
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