Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Disagreeing with the majority can be a sign of rational thinking.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde suggests that holding a contrary opinion to a large portion of the population may indicate a healthy state of mind. It implies that critical thinking and individuality are essential, and that mere conformity to popular opinion may not necessarily lead to truth or sanity.
Themes
DisagreementSanityIndividualityOpinionTruth
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate about social issues where many people have similar views, this quote can emphasize the importance of dissenting opinions.
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
Similar quotes
We have a tendency to make assumptions about everything! The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are truth. We could swear they are real. We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking-we take it personally-then we blame them and react by sending emotional poison in our word. That is why whenever we make assumptions, we're asking for problems. We make assumptions, we misunderstand, we take it personally, and we end up creating a whole big drama for nothing.
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One sometimes feels a guest of one's time and not a member of its household.
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As far as social-economic theory is concerned, I am still a Marxist
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Will you not covet such power as this, and seek such throne as this, and be no more housewives, but queens? There is no putting by that crown; queens you must always be; queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond. . . . But alas! you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest.
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So eager are our people to obliterate the present.
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But truly, if I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.
Alexander The GreatRead