Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Avoiding life's challenges for the sake of security limits our experiences and growth.
This quote by Oscar Wilde emphasizes the folly of avoiding the difficulties and complexities of life in pursuit of safety. By choosing to 'shut one's eyes' to the struggles of existence, one may feel temporarily secure, but this self-imposed blindness means forsaking the richness of life's experiences, which can often lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of living.
Themes
LifeExperienceSecurityCourageGrowth
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about overcoming fear to embrace life fully.
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.
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
America must begin the struggle for democracy at home. The advocacy of free elections in Europe by American officials is hypocrisy when free elections are not held in great sections of America.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read
This moment - the one you're experiencing right now - is the culmination of all the moments you have experienced in the past. This moment is as it is because the entire universe is as it is.
Deepak ChopraRead
The spirit of non-violence necessarily leads to humility. Non-violence means reliance on God, the rock of ages. If we would seek his aid, we must approach Him with a humble and contrite heart.
Mahatma GandhiRead
Hanging out with politicians and corporations is very unhip work. But I think that the U2 audience have turned out to be incredibly subtle in their understanding.
BonoRead
Here is a tree rooted in African soil, nourished with waters from the rivers of Afrika. Come and sit under its shade and become, with us, the leaves of the same branch and the branches of the same tree
Robert SobukweRead
There is no longer a single idea explaining everything, but an infinite number of essences giving a meaning to an infinite number of objects. The world comes to a stop, but also lights up.
Albert CamusRead