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 →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.
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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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You have to help another person. But it's not right to play God with masses of people. To be God you have to know what you're doing. And to do any good at all, just believing you're right and your motives are good isn't enough.
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