Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that a belief can lose its validity when it is widely accepted by many people, implying that truth is subjective.
Oscar Wilde's quote examines the nature of truth and belief, proposing that the essence of what is true can be distorted or diluted by the mere agreement of a group. When many people adopt the same belief, it can transform from an absolute truth into a societal construct, revealing the complex interplay between perception and reality. This reflection encourages individuals to approach truth with skepticism and encourages critical thinking.
Themes
TruthBeliefSubjectiveRealityPerception
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical debate about the nature of reality.
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
His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
Oscar WildeRead
Intellectual generalities are always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely nothing.
Oscar WildeRead
Similar quotes
Humans are producers of their life circumstance not just products of them.
Albert BanduraRead
Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
There are the saints of every day, the 'hidden' saints, a sort of 'middle class of holiness'... to which we can all belong.
Pope FrancisRead
I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important thing about you is the way in which it determines the perspective in your several worlds.
William JamesRead
The possession of wealth leads almost inevitably to its abuse. It is the chief, if not the only, cause of evils which desolate this world below. The thirst for gold is responsible for the most regrettable lapses into sin.
Jules VerneRead
In the eyes of many people, giving doesn't count unless it's completely selfless. In reality, though, giving isn't sustainable when it's completely selfless.
Adam GrantRead