Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Selfishness is not living your life as you wish to live it. Selfishness is wanting others to live their lives as you wish them to.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Selfishness involves imposing your desires on others instead of allowing them to live freely.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde elucidates the concept of selfishness by making a distinction between living authentically and imposing one's will on others. True selfishness is not merely living according to one's own desires, but rather the act of desiring that others conform to how one wishes them to live, thus stifling their individuality and freedom.
Themes
SelfishnessFreedomIndividualityDesirePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a discussion about personal freedom versus social expectations.
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.
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
I'm an atheist. But I absolutely love religions and the rituals. Even though I don't believe in God. We celebrate pretty much every religion in our family with the kids. They love it, and when they say, 'Are we Jewish?' or 'Are we Catholic?' I say, 'Well, I'm not, but you can choose when you're 18. But isn't this fun that we do seders and the Advent calendar?'
Jodie FosterRead
SOONER OR LATER ALL MEN MUST DIE. EVERYTHING DIES IN THE END. I CAN BE ROBBED BUT NEVER DENIED, I TOLD MYSELF. WHY WORRY? βI too cannot be cheated,β snapped Fate.
Terry PratchettRead
A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes
Gotthold Ephraim LessingRead
Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better. Interweave all these communities and you really have an America that is back on its feet again. I really think we are gonna have to reassess what constitutes a 'hero'.
Studs TerkelRead
Everywhere you look for comparisons of life under anarchy and life under government, life under government is less violent.
Steven PinkerRead
If it's true that every seven years each cell in your body dies and is replaced, then I have truly inherited my life from a dead man; and the misdeeds of those times have been forgiven, and are buried with his bones.
Neil GaimanRead