Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Wilde suggests that America's existence was not a discovery in the traditional sense, but rather an awareness of something already present.
This quote by Oscar Wilde posits the idea that the 'discovery' of America is less about a literal finding of land and more about the recognition and understanding of it by those who encountered it. It challenges the conventional narrative of discovery, encouraging a deeper reflection on the idea of existence and the perceptions we hold of places and cultures that we may not fully understand.
Themes
AmericaDiscoveryPerceptionRecognitionExistence
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on colonialism, this quote can illustrate how historical narratives can be reconsidered.
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
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