Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
What consoles one nowadays is not repentance but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of date.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that in modern times, people find comfort in pleasure rather than feeling remorse for their actions.
Oscar Wilde's quote highlights a shift in societal values, where the pursuit of pleasure has overtaken the need for reflection and remorse. In today's world, the idea of guilt or repentance seems antiquated; instead, individuals prioritize immediate gratification and enjoyment, often overlooking the moral implications of their choices.
In practice
During a seminar on modern ethical dilemmas, this quote could be used to illustrate how contemporary society prioritizes pleasure.
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
I cannot see why we should expect an infinite God to do better in another world than he does in this.
When there is hallucination, there is the truth, by recognising it as hallucination. Where there is suffering, there is peace and bliss, by letting go and experiencing it for numberless suffering sentient beings. Always think of how others are kind and precious Treat them as you would like to be treated.
If the only people we are able to extend empathy to are those who are like us, who come from the same country we do, or who share our faith, then we misunderstand what empathy is.
Death is the surcease that comes when the exhausting battle has been lost.
Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of it's own accord.
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few - the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.