Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.
Interpretation
The way we present ourselves and our ideas is more important than being genuine in serious situations.
Oscar Wilde's quote suggests that in serious matters, the manner in which we communicate is crucial, perhaps more so than the truthfulness of what we say. This highlights the idea that perception and style can significantly impact how our messages are received, often overshadowing the sincerity behind them.
In practice
In a debate about a critical issue, this quote can be used to emphasize the significance of presentation.
Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
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
Fiction that adds up, that suggests a "logical consistency," or an explanation of some kind, is surely second-rate fiction; for the truth of life is its mystery.
The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn,βnot the material of my every-day existence--but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself.
People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we're compassionate we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.
Where man had been, in every place he left, garbage remained. Even in his pursuit of the ultimate truth and quest for his God, he produced garbage. By his garbage, which lay stratum upon stratum, he could always - one had only to dig - be known. For more long-lived than man is his refuse. Garbage alone lives after him.
Six is a number perfect in itself, and not because God created the world in six days; rather the contrary is true. God created the world in six days because this number is perfect, and it would remain perfect, even if the work of the six days did not exist.
What an awful thing life is, isnβt it? Itβs like soup with lots of hairs floating on the surface. You have to eat it nevertheless.
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