Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Thinking is the most unhealthy thing in the world, and people die of it just as they die of any other disease. Fortunately, in England at any rate, thought is not catching.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Overthinking can be detrimental to one's mental health, much like a disease.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde suggests that excessive thinking is harmful and can lead to negative consequences for mental well-being, comparable to physical illness. He contrasts this idea with the notion that while thought itself may be dangerous, it is not something that can easily spread from one person to another, indicating a certain level of personal responsibility in managing one's thoughts.
Themes
ThinkingHealthPhilosophyMental HealthDisease
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about mental health, one might quote Wilde to emphasize the risks of overthinking.
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
There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain.
R. D. LaingRead
It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.
Frank HerbertRead
All of us are experts at practicing virtue at a distance.
Theodore HesburghRead
I discovered when we suffer, we suffer as equals. And in their capacity to suffer, a dog is a pig, is a bear...is a boy.
Philip WollenRead
If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.
Ronald ReaganRead
Many people feel "guilty" about things they shouldn't feel guilty about, in order to shut out feelings of guilt about things they should feel guilty about.
Sydney J. HarrisRead