Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote illustrates that both desire and fulfillment can lead to suffering.
Oscar Wilde's quote highlights the dual nature of human desire and fulfillment, suggesting that the pursuit of what we want can result in disappointment, while obtaining it can lead to a different set of challenges. This reflects the complexities of life where both unmet desires and their fulfillments can lead to their own forms of tragedy, emphasizing the idea that happiness is not solely found in achieving one's goals.
Themes
TragedyDesireFulfillmentLifeSuffering
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a motivational speech to highlight the complexities of ambition.
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
Some people like what you do, some people hate what you do, but most people simply don't give a damn.
Charles BukowskiRead
Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.
Anton ChekhovRead
She wasn't afraid of difficulties, what frightened her was having to choose one particular path. Choosing a path meant missing out on others. She had a whole life to live and she was always thinking that, in the future, she might regret the choices she made now.
Paulo CoelhoRead
As long as skies are blue, and fields are green Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow
Percy Bysshe ShelleyRead
I would like to travel light on this journey of life, to get rid of the encumbrances I acquire each day.
Madeleine L'EngleRead
Some things I loved have vanished. A great many others have been given to me
Simone De BeauvoirRead