Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote contrasts beauty and morality, suggesting that while beauty has its advantages, goodness holds greater value than ugliness.
Oscar Wilde's quote explores the complex relationship between beauty and morality, suggesting that while being beautiful may grant certain privileges and social advantages, being good, characterized by moral integrity and kindness, is ultimately more valuable than being ugly. In this reflection, Wilde implies that aesthetic beauty can be fleeting and superficial, whereas goodness, encompassing character and virtue, yields lasting worth that transcends physical appearances.
Themes
BeautyGoodnessMoralityUglinessLifePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion on the values of inner beauty at a seminar.
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
I am not like a pebble on the beach - a grain of sand on the seashore or just one of millions of human beings past, present and future. No, I am a unique human being loved by God as if I were an only child - the only fruit of his creative powers.
Mother AngelicaRead
I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.
Bertrand RussellRead
This planet has β or rather had β a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.
Douglas AdamsRead
We create our fate every day . . . most of the ills we suffer from are directly traceable to our own behavior.
Henry MillerRead
Had there not been five bad qualities, all the people would have been righteous. Contentment with ignorance; love for worldly life; miserliness inspite of much wealth; ostentation in (good) deeds; and pride in their own intelligence.
Ali Ibn Abi TalibRead
I dream. Sometimes I think thatβs the only right thing to do. To dream, to live in the world of dreams. But it doesnβt last forever. Wakefulness always comes to take me back.
Haruki MurakamiRead