Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
It is very vulgar to talk about one's own business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then only at dinner parties.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Talking about personal affairs is considered rude, except for certain professions and social situations.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde highlights the social faux pas of discussing one's own business or personal matters in public settings, suggesting that such behavior is only acceptable among specific professions, like stockbrokers, and typically during informal gatherings. Wilde's witty remark reflects societal norms and the comedic absurdity of how certain topics are deemed appropriate in social discourse.
Themes
VulgarityBusinessSocietyDinnerNorms
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used to lighten the mood at a social gathering where someone is overly sharing personal business.
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
If you're in Journalism and you're looking for friends, you should get a dog.
Dan RatherRead
There may be a heaven, but if Joan Crawford is there, I'm not going.
Bette DavisRead
Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.
Agnes RepplierRead
A holding company is a thing where you hand an accomplice the goods while the policeman searches you.
Will RogersRead
When I was four, I asked my mother for a valet for my birthday.
Karl LagerfeldRead
If I existed 200 years ago, all the other farmers in my community would be like, 'That guy is worthless! He's sitting on a rock, jumping up like a frog, coming up with weird concepts and ideas, making faces, and combing his hair into a giant pastry.' It's a good thing I was born in this century, when superfluous television seems to be part of the economy.
Conan O'BrienRead