Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Human life--that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life is the most valuable subject to examine, despite its challenges and complexities.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde emphasizes the importance of understanding human life, suggesting that no other pursuit holds greater significance. He acknowledges the duality of existence, filled with both joy and suffering, and warns against superficiality in perception, as it may cloud our understanding and imagination.
Themes
LifeValuePainPleasureInvestigation
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical debate on the meaning of life.
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.
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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.
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Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
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A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
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His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
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