QuoteProject
When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
Oscar Wilde
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote suggests that fulfilling our desires may lead to negative consequences.

Oscar Wilde's quote emphasizes the idea that when we receive what we wish for, especially through prayers, it may not be a blessing but rather a punishment in disguise. It reflects on the notion that longing and desire can lead us to situations that may seem favorable but could ultimately result in unforeseen challenges or suffering. Thus, it invites reflection on the nature of our desires and the potential pitfalls that come with their fulfillment.

Themes

DesirePrayersConsequencesWisdomPunishment

In practice

Example use cases

During a philosophical discussion about the nature of wishes and consequences.

More from Oscar Wilde

Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
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

But if the Vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet;for such things are of Spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost.
Black ElkRead
Books and drafts mean something quite different for different thinkers. One collects in a book the lights he was able to steal and carry home swiftly out of the rays of some insight that suddenly dawned on him, while another thinker offers us nothing but shadows - images in black and grey of what had built up in his soul the day before.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
One of the major differences I see in the political climate today is that there is less collective support for coming to critical consciousness – in communities, in institutions, among friends.
Bell HooksRead
The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
I enjoyed having a reputation as being wild, but these days I try not to worry about what people think in the privacy of their own brain or what they write in the bizarre publicity of their own newspapers, because all of those things are meaningless.
Russell BrandRead
Here on earth, God's work must surely be our own.
John F. KennedyRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.