Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
The great things in life are what they seem to be. And for that reason, strange as it may sound to you, often are very difficult to interpret (understand). Great passions are for the great of souls. Great events can only be seen by people who are on a level with them. We think we can have our visions for nothing. We cannot. Even the finest and most self-sacrificing visions have to be paid for. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life's greatest achievements and passions often require deep understanding and sacrifice to appreciate fully.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde reflects on the nature of significant experiences and emotions in life. He suggests that true greatness and profound events are not easily comprehensible to everyone; they demand a certain level of insight and connection to appreciate. Furthermore, Wilde posits that nothing of value comes without a cost, indicating that the noblest visions and passions require effort and sacrifice, which ultimately enhances their worth.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about perseverance, one might use this quote to illustrate the value of hard work in achieving greatness.
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.
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.
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
Similar quotes
We have been so successful in the past century at the art of living longer and staying alive that we have forgotten how to die. Too often we learn the hard way. As soon as the baby boomers pass pensionable age, their lesson will be harsher still.
To philosophize with open eyes is to philosophize in the dark. Only the blind can look straight at the sun.
It is not the germs we need worry about. It is our inner terrain.
We may now have reached a point where this gap in our make-up has become unsustainable; partly because what in the past would have counted as material plenty has become the norm for the majority in much of the world; and partly because the slow retreat of religion that coincided with the spread of a capitalist economy has left a gaping hole in millions of people's lives. (Geoff Mulgan)
I've tried to believe, but I don't, I can't, and there's no use pretending.
I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.