Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people. And falsehoods the truths of other people. Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself. To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes individual identity and self-acceptance over societal norms and judgments.
Oscar Wilde's quote suggests that true fashion and personal values stem from within, rather than conforming to societal standards or the opinions of others. He argues that what is considered unfashionable or vulgar is merely a reflection of external judgments, and that the only genuine society is the one we create for ourselves through self-love and acceptance. This self-romance is a crucial foundation for a fulfilling life.
Themes
FashionSelf-LoveIndividualitySocietySelf-Acceptance
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about personal style at a fashion event.
More from Oscar Wilde
All quotes →London 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
What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.
Frederick BuechnerRead
If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.
Thomas JeffersonRead
Whatever is, is in its causes just.
John DrydenRead
The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.
Brad PittRead
Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood let alone believed by the masses.
PlatoRead
Wouldn't it be better to have a watertight law designed to catch the guilty, rather than a press release law designed to catch the headlines?
William HagueRead