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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So long as you do not achieve social liberty, whatever freedom is provided by the law is of no avail to you.
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Having therefore no foreign establishments, either colonial or military, the ships of war of the United States, in war, will be like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores. To provide resting places for them, where they can coal and repair, would be one of the first duties of a government proposing to itself the development of the power of the nation at sea.
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