Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Being true to oneself can be challenging and requires effort.
Oscar Wilde highlights the paradox of authenticity in this quote, suggesting that while being natural or genuine is often seen as effortless, in reality, it can be a complex and strenuous act. This statement prompts reflection on the pressures of societal expectations that may compel individuals to wear facades rather than embrace their true selves.
Themes
AuthenticityNatureSelfSocietyPressure
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about self-acceptance, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of being oneself.
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
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Allen DullesRead
An agnostic position is one that leaves open the question whether there exists a god or gods, professing to find such a question unanswered or unanswerable. For the atheist, the question has been answered, and in the negative.
Jaroslav PelikanRead
What makes a Christian a Christian is not perfection but forgiveness.
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Death, only death, can break the lasting chain; And here, ev'n then, shall my cold dust remain
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Isaac Asimov's remark about the infantilism of pseudoscience is just as applicable to religion: 'Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold.' It is astonishing, moreover, how many people are unable to understand that 'X is comforting' does not imply 'X is true'.
Richard DawkinsRead
Monks, when ignorance is abandoned, and knowledge arises in the monk, with the ending of ignorance and the arising of knowledge he clings neither to sense-pleasures, nor does he cling to views, nor to precepts and vows, nor to a Self-doctrine. Not clinking, he is not disturbed; not disturbed, he attains individually nibbana.
Gautama BuddhaRead