Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the idea that sentimental people enjoy feelings without the responsibilities or consequences that come with them.
Oscar Wilde's quote suggests that a sentimentalist seeks the comfort and beauty of emotions but avoids the deeper, often difficult experiences and costs associated with them. It implies a superficial engagement with feelings, where one desires the luxury of emotion while shirking the accountability that genuine emotional investment requires.
Themes
EmotionSentimentLuxuryResponsibilitySuperficiality
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about emotional depth during a philosophy class.
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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