Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Sympathy with joy intensifies the sum of sympathy in the world, sympathy with pain does not really diminish the amount of pain.
Interpretation
Empathy enhances the positive emotions we share, while sharing pain does not lessen the pain felt by others.
Oscar Wilde's quote highlights the idea that while sharing joy amplifies positive feelings in the world, sharing in another's suffering does not reduce the overall pain they experience. It suggests that our emotional connections can have differing impacts based on the nature of the feelings we share.
In practice
During a speech at a charity event, I quoted Wilde to emphasize the importance of sharing joy to uplift the community.
Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
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
Christ came to be Father's compassion to the world. Be kind in your actions. Do not think that you are the only one who can do efficient work, work worth showing. This makes you harsh in your judgment of others who may not have the same talents. Do your best and trust that others do their best. And be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
On an important decision one rarely has 100% of the information needed for a good decision no matter how much one spends or how long one waits. And, if one waits too long, he has a different problem and has to start all over. This is the terrible dilemma of the hesitant decision maker.
Now, we learn that a system must have an aim. Without an aim, there is no system.
If you do not possess the staff of caution and discrimination, use the eyes of him who sees. If there is no staff of caution and discrimination, do not wander on the road without a guide.
As women, we get the message about how to be a good girl - how to be a good, pretty girl - from such an early age. Then, at the same time, we're told that well-behaved girls won't change the world or ever make a splash.
There is greatness in the fear of God, contentment in faith of God, and honour in humility.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.