Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Progress in thought is the assertion of individualism against authority.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of individual thought and expression in challenging established authority.
Oscar Wilde suggests that true progress in our thinking arises when individuals assert their own ideas and beliefs against the pressure of authority. It highlights the value of individualism, encouraging people to think for themselves and resist conforming to external demands or expectations.
Themes
IndividualismAuthorityProgressThoughtExpression
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a speech on the importance of free thinking in education.
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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Similar quotes
Of what significance is one's existence, one is basically unaware. What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life? The bitter and the sweet come from outside. The hard from within, from one's own efforts. For the most part I do what my own nature drives me to do. It is embarrassing to earn such respect and love for it.
Albert EinsteinRead
Maybe, he said hesitantly, maybe there is a beast. The assembly cried out savagely and Ralph stood up in amazement. You, Simon? You believe in this? I don't know, said Simon. His heartbeats were choking him. [...] Ralph shouted. Hear him! He's got the conch! What I mean is . . . maybe it's only us. Nuts! That was from Piggy, shocked out of decorum.
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Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
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It is... easy to be certain. One has only to be sufficiently vague.
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Nor does God whisper through the trees. His voice is not to be mistaken. When men hear it they fall to their knees and their souls are riven and they cry out to Him and there is no fear but only wildness of heart that springs from such longing.
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One must never set up a murder. They must happen unexpectedly, as in life.
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