Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Art, like Nature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous voices.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art can reflect both beauty and ugliness, showcasing the darker aspects of existence.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde suggests that art, much like nature, contains elements that are terrifying or monstrous. These 'monsters' represent the darker sides of life and creativity that can be unsettling yet serve a purpose in revealing truth, evoking emotion, and challenging perceptions in the realm of artistic expression.
Themes
ArtNatureMonstersCreativityExpression
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on the complexities of artistic expression at a gallery.
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
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Century-old records are the closest thing we have to a time machine. To listen to the voice of Theodore Roosevelt or the piano playing of Claude Debussy is to feel the years falling away like autumn leaves from a maple tree.
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My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict. I don't see how art can be called art if its purpose is to frustrate humanity.
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So much in writing depends on the superficiality of one's days.
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A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.
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