Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
It is sweet to dance to violins When love and life are fair: To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feet To dance upon the air!
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses the joy of love and life when circumstances are favorable, contrasting it with the emptiness of trying to find joy in unattainable dreams.
Oscar Wilde's quote captures the essence of happiness derived from love and favorable life conditions, suggesting that while it is delightful to enjoy the beauty of music and dance in harmony with life, it becomes meaningless to pursue joy in impossible situations. The imagery of dancing to various musical instruments reflects the different dimensions of love, yet emphasizes that the ultimate elation comes from tangible experiences rather than lofty aspirations.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a wedding toast to emphasize the joy of love.
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 you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
Give into love or live in fear.
There once was a girl who found herself dead. She peered over the ledge of heaven and saw that back on earth her sister missed her too much, was way too sad, so she crossed some paths that would not have crossed, took some moments in her hand shook them up and spilled them like dice over the living world. It worked. The boy with the guitar collided with her sister. "There you go, Len," she whispered. "The rest is up to you.