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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Similar quotes
My whole life has been nothing more than a continuous struggle against Reaction and the death of art.
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Film should be looked at straight on; it is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.
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This is no book. Whoever touches this touches a man.
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When asked how she knows when her writing is where she wants it to be: "I know when it's the best I can do. It may not be the best there is. Another writer may do it much better. But I know when it's the best I can do. I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, 'No. No, I'm finished. Bye.' And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won't do that."
Maya AngelouRead
The architect works for so many years building it, and the moment you deliver it to the people is the moment when you are unnecessary.
Santiago CalatravaRead
The most powerful words in English are 'Tell me a story,' words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the origins of language, the continuity of the species, the taproot of our humanity, our singularity, and art itself.
Pat ConroyRead