Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Wilde suggests that even efforts to be useful can sometimes lead to negative outcomes.
Oscar Wilde's quote reflects the irony often found in political processes, where the attempts of institutions like the House of Commons to enact positive change can inadvertently result in harm. This statement critiques the notion that good intentions alone lead to beneficial results, highlighting the complexity of political actions and their unintended consequences.
Themes
PoliticsGovernmentIronyIntentionConsequences
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on political reform, one could quote Wilde to illustrate the unintended consequences of government actions.
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
At the turn of the last century, extremists were forced back to the political fringes while younger politicians resurrected the vitality of the original Republican vision. They recognized that the nation could only develop and grow by protecting equality of opportunity for hardworking Americans at the bottom of the economic ladder.
Heather Cox RichardsonRead
If we let Korea down, the Soviet[s] will keep right on going and swallow up one [place] after another.
Harry S. TrumanRead
Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.
Thomas B. MacaulayRead
Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
There are war-torn countries, people full of poverty, who still voted, 60, 70 percent. If here in the United States of America, we voted at 60 percent, 70 percent, it would transform our politics.
Barack ObamaRead
Law and Order are the medicine of the body politic and when the body politic gets sick, medicine must be administered.
B. R. AmbedkarRead