Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks is to disturb monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine. It seeks to show new perspectives and other choices. It is a way to help expand and liberate the consciousness; our experiences, understandings, imaginings, options and thereby our lives.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art represents individual expression that challenges societal norms and encourages new perspectives.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde emphasizes the essential role of individualism in art. He argues that art serves as a transformative force that disrupts monotonous customs and the oppressive patterns of habitual thinking. By pushing against the conventional, art broadens our awareness and opens up new possibilities for self-expression and understanding, ultimately enriching our lives.
Themes
ArtIndividualismCreativityPerspectiveExpressionConsciousness
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used during an art exhibit opening to emphasize the importance of individual expression.
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.
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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.
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Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
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A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
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His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
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Her fine high forehead sloped gently up to where her hair, bordering it like an armorial shield, burst into lovelocks and waves and curlicues of ash blonde and gold. Her eyes were bright, big, clear, wet and shining, the colour of her cheeks was real, breaking close to the surface from the strong young pump of her heart. Her body hovered delicately on the last edge of childhood -- she was almost eighteen, nearly complete, but the dew was still on her.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
When I first began choreographing, I never thought of it as choreography but as expressing feelings. Though every piece is different, they are all trying to get at certain things that are difficult to put into words. In the work, everything belongs to everything else - the music, the set, the movement and whatever is said.
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There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.
Clifton FadimanRead