Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
It is absurd to say that there are neither ruins nor curiosities in America when they have their mothers and their manners.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the value of cultural heritage and the significance of manners in society.
Oscar Wilde suggests that America, despite its youth and lack of ancient ruins like those in Europe, possesses its own forms of history and culture represented through its people and their behaviors. The mention of 'mothers and their manners' implies that even in a new nation, there exist elements of tradition and social interaction that contribute to a unique historical narrative.
Themes
AmericaCultureHeritageMannersPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
Discussing the uniqueness of American culture in a history class.
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
There is a name hidden in the shadow of my soul, where I read it night and day and no other eye sees it.
Alphonse De LamartineRead
Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.
Henry David ThoreauRead
If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
I don't mean to say that I'm about to state my credo here on this page, but merely to affirm, sincerely for the first time in my life, my belief in man as an individual and independent entity. Certainly not independence in the everyday sense of the word, but pertaining to a freedom and mobility of thought that few people are able - or even have the courage - to achieve.
Hunter S. ThompsonRead
Even as I think of myself as a 'rememberer,' I also know my memory is probably doing all this work to reconstruct a narrative where I come off better.
Natasha TretheweyRead
Today I felt pass over me A breath of wind from the wings of madness.
Charles BaudelaireRead