Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
To be popular one must be a mediocrity.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Popularity often requires sacrificing individuality and excellence for conformity.
Oscar Wilde's quote suggests that in order to be well-liked or popular, one must often suppress unique qualities or talents and adopt a more average or conformist persona. This commentary on societal norms highlights the tension between personal authenticity and the desire for acceptance in social circles.
Themes
PopularityMediocrityIndividualitySocietyConformity
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about staying true to oneself in a world of conformity.
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.
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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.
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Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
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A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
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His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
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This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-Paradise.
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