Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
It is sweet to dance to violins When love and life are fair: To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feet To dance upon the air!
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses the joy of love and life when circumstances are favorable, contrasting it with the emptiness of trying to find joy in unattainable dreams.
Oscar Wilde's quote captures the essence of happiness derived from love and favorable life conditions, suggesting that while it is delightful to enjoy the beauty of music and dance in harmony with life, it becomes meaningless to pursue joy in impossible situations. The imagery of dancing to various musical instruments reflects the different dimensions of love, yet emphasizes that the ultimate elation comes from tangible experiences rather than lofty aspirations.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a wedding toast to emphasize the joy of love.
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.
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.
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
Similar quotes
Make no mistake: I love women. I'm married to one, I was birthed by one, and I played one in my high school production of 'Romeo and Juliet.' No one else could fit into the bodice.
You are my angel and my damnation; in your presence I reach divine ecstasy and in your absence I descent to hell.
I thought my heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion.
It is the nature of love to love as much as we feel we are loved and to love whatever the one we love loves.
Here is the piece. If you can't say fornicate can you say copulate or if not that can you say co-habit? If not that would have to say consummate I suppose. Use your own good taste and judgment.
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk.