Tao Te Ching
Oscar Wilde
1854 – 1900 CE
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
Prolific Irish poet, writer, journalist, and one of the most successful playwrights of his time; Wilde rebelled against his moralistic, Victorian environment with an “unequivocal inclination toward the unconventional” favoring passion and sensual pleasure. Strongly influenced by his teacher, John Ruskin, he transformed his more hedonistic tendencies into deep social concerns and wrote against decadence, duplicity, and libel. Married and with two sons, his writings went against popular opinion by describing women as creative and intelligent. His liaisons with men however led to a trial for homosexuality, incarceration, a severe injury in prison after collapsing from illness and hunger, and later death in extreme poverty. In many ways, his life seems to have exemplified his famous aphorism, “No good deed goes unpunished.”
Eras
Chinese
Qing dynasty (1644 – 1912 CE)Sources
Unlisted Sources
Critic as Artist, 1891
Quotes by Oscar Wilde (42 quotes)
“People know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
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“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”
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“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”
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“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.”
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“There are many things that we would throw away, if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.”
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“Experience is simply the name we give to our mistakes.”
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“To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.”
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“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
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“Everything in moderation, including moderation.”
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“Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. Women have a more subtle instinct about these things. What (women) like is to be a man’s last romance.”
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“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”
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“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
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“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”
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“They've promised that dreams can come true - but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams, too.”
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“In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants and the other is getting it”
Chapters:
46. Enough
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“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
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“Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.”
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“I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.”
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“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
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“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
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“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
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“It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased opinion, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always absolutely valueless.”
from Critic as Artist, 1891
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“One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.”
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“Balzac is no more a realist than Holbein was, He created life, he did not copy it.”
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“A masterpiece of art and one of my greatest literary loves.”
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“A pessimist is somebody who complains about the noise when opportunity knocks.”
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“I have never searched for happiness. Who wants happiness? I have searched for pleasure.”
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“They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.”
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“Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing”
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“I like Wagner’s music better than any other music. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time, without people hearing what one says.”
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“Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love; it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.”
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“Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot.”
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“There is much to be said for modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with ignorance of the community.”
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“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
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“A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure.”
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