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
What this quote means
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.
Themes
StyleSincerityImportanceCommunicationPerception
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about a critical issue, this quote can be used to emphasize the significance of presentation.
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
If eternity had a season, it would be midsummer. Autumn, winter, spring are all change and passage, but at the height of summer the year stands poised. It's only a passing moment, but even as it passes the heart knows it cannot change.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
Space-ships and time machines are no escape from the human condition. Let Othello subject Desdemona to a lie-detector test; his jealousy will still blind him to the evidence. Let Oedipus triumph over gravity; he won't triumph over his fate.
Arthur KoestlerRead
The elevation of parochial values to the realm of the sacred is a license to dismiss other people's interests, and an imperative to reject the possibility of compromise
Steven PinkerRead
Human reason has the peculiar fate in one species of its cognitions that it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss, since they are given to it as problems by the nature of reason itself, but which it also cannot answer, since they transcend every capacity of human reason.
Immanuel KantRead
Neither failure nor success has the power to change your inner state of Being.
Eckhart TolleRead
To be born in India is to arrive into the world swimming in religion.
Ravi ZachariasRead