Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Disagreeing with the majority can be a sign of rational thinking.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde suggests that holding a contrary opinion to a large portion of the population may indicate a healthy state of mind. It implies that critical thinking and individuality are essential, and that mere conformity to popular opinion may not necessarily lead to truth or sanity.
Themes
DisagreementSanityIndividualityOpinionTruth
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate about social issues where many people have similar views, this quote can emphasize the importance of dissenting opinions.
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
Arithmetic arithmetock Turn the hands back on the clock How does the ocean rock the boat? How did the razor find my throat? The only strings that hold me here Are tangled up around the pier.
Tom WaitsRead
Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, Where death's approach is seen so terrible!
William ShakespeareRead
For every force charged by God, may He be exalted, with some business is an angel put in charge.
MaimonidesRead
There's nothing so passionate as a vested interest disguised as an intellectual conviction.
Sean O'CaseyRead
Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge.
Eliezer YudkowskyRead
In truth, there is no rational argument for guns in this society. This is no longer a frontier nation in which people hunt their own food. It is a crowded, overwhelmingly urban country in which letting people have access to guns is a continuing disaster.
Molly IvinsRead