Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote humorously suggests that many women choose to remain at the age of thirty-five due to societal pressures and perceptions of beauty.
Oscar Wilde's quote playfully critiques societal expectations surrounding age and beauty, particularly for women. By asserting that women of the highest birth can remain perpetually at thirty-five of their own choice, Wilde highlights the absurdity of valuing youth and the power dynamics in society that keep these ideals in place. It reflects on the pressures women face and the idea that one's worth can be tied to a specific age, all while making a witty observation about the nature of perception in London society.
Themes
AgeBeautySocietyWomenPerception
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about societal norms, one could quote Wilde to emphasize the unrealistic standards placed on women.
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
It was something... the way a person's life picked up speed, the way a life was like a bullet aimed at one final target, impossible to slow or turn aside, and like the bullet, you were ignorant of what you were going to hit, would never know anything except the rush and the impact.
Joe HillRead
All meditations are nothing but efforts to bring you to the present. When you live in the present moment, with no past hanging around you, with no future projection, you are free from life and death, you are free from body and mind. You are free - simply free - you are freedom.
RajneeshRead
Those doves below, the ones utterly cared for, never endangered ones, cannot know tenderness.
Rainer Maria RilkeRead
God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.
BonoRead
Most animals are pragmatic about mysteries: If they run across something they don't understand, all they care about is whether it's edible and whether it's dangerous. Humans, on the other hand, are drawn to the mystery for its own sake.
Tana FrenchRead
I have nowhere claimed nor even implied that unbelief is a guarantee of good conduct or even an indicator of it.
Christopher HitchensRead