Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Disobedience is essential for progress and is viewed as a virtue.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde emphasizes the importance of disobedience as a catalyst for progress and innovation throughout history. He posits that rather than viewing disobedience as a flaw or wrongdoing, it should be recognized as a fundamental virtue that has enabled humanity to challenge existing norms and drive societal advancements through rebellion and critical thinking.
Themes
DisobedienceProgressRebellionVirtueHistory
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about civil rights, one could cite this quote to highlight the importance of standing up against unjust laws.
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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When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don't actually "become" a buddha, you simply cease, slowly, to be deluded. And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming at last a true human being.
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Let none admire that riches grow in hell; that soil may best deserve the precious bane.
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This awful concept of underclass is really horrifying. You're not lower class, you are excluded - outside.
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Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.
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One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things.
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It is because we are all impostors that we endure each other. The man who does not consent to lie will see the earth shrink under his feet: we are biologically obliged to the false
Emile M. CioranRead