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
After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth'.
J. R. R. TolkienRead
[...] intelligent people only have a certain amount of time (measured in subjective time spent thinking about religion) to become atheists. After a certain point, if you're smart, have spent time thinking about and defending your religion, and still haven't escaped the grip of Dark Side Epistemology, the inside of your mind ends up as an Escher painting.
Eliezer YudkowskyRead
If the study of all these sciences which we have enumerated, should ever bring us to their mutual association and relationship, and teach us the nature of the ties which bind them together, I believe that the diligent treatment of them will forward the objects which we have in view, and that the labor, which otherwise would be fruitless, will be well bestowed.
PlatoRead
The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.
George OrwellRead
The golden rule of conduct is mutual toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike and we shall see Truth in fragment and from different angles of vision.
Mahatma GandhiRead
The only thing in the world worth a damn is the strange, touching, pathetic, awesome nobility of the individual human spirit.
John D. MacdonaldRead