Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
I did not think I should be ever loved: do you indeed Love me so much as now you say you do? Ask of the sea-bird if it loves the sea, Ask of the roses if they love the rain, Ask of the little lark, that will not sing Till day break, if it loves to see the day: And yet, these are but empty images, Mere shadows of my love, which is a fire So great that all the waters of the main Can not avail to quench it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The speaker expresses doubt about being truly loved, comparing love to elements of nature, emphasizing its depth and intensity.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde captures the complexity of love, where the speaker questions the authenticity and depth of their partner's affection. Through vivid natural imagery, Wilde illustrates that while other things in nature may seem to have an innate love, their own love is profound and powerful, likening it to a fire that cannot be extinguished. This suggests that true love is both overwhelming and essential, transcending ordinary expressions and comparisons.
Themes
LoveDepthNaturePassionEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
A romantic dinner conversation to express deep feelings.
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
The scene I had just witnessed (a couple making love in the ocean) brought back a lot of memories β not of things I had done but of things I had failed to do, wasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost because time had eaten so much of my life and I would never get it back. I envied Yeoman and felt sorry for myself at the same time, because I had seen him in a moment that made all my happiness seem dull.
Hunter S. ThompsonRead
as females in a patriarchal culture, we were not slaves of love; most of us were and are slaves of longing-- yearning for a master who will set us free and claim us because we cannot claim ourselves
Bell HooksRead
All this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to set me straight if you think I'm wrong. I want to know. I mean, I don't know anything, and I'm the first one to admit it.
Raymond CarverRead
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale, And her mouth on a valentine.
Edna St. Vincent MillayRead
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Khalil GibranRead
Love is what moves the world, I've always thought...it is the only thing which allows men and women to stand in a world where gravity always seems to want to pull them down...bring them low...and make them crawl.
Stephen KingRead