Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigraph on his tombstone.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests the extreme lengths to which an artist might go for the sake of their creative expression, valuing art over personal relationships.
Oscar Wilde's quote reflects a darkly humorous and exaggerated perspective on the sacrifices that one might make for art and the legacy it leaves behind. It underscores the idea that for some, the act of creating and how one is remembered can take precedence over personal bonds, suggesting a complex relationship between artistry and morality.
Themes
ArtSacrificeLegacyRelationshipsCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in an art class to spark discussion on the sacrifices artists make for their work.
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
All deep things are song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls!
Thomas CarlyleRead
Art is History's nostalgia, it prefers a thatched roof to a concrete factory, and the huge church above a bleached village.
Derek WalcottRead
A work of art has an author and yet, when it is perfect, it has something which is anonymous about it.
Simone WeilRead
In good films, there is always a directness that entirely frees us from the itch to interpret.
Susan SontagRead
As a writer you're holding a dog. You let the dog run about. But you finally can pull him back. Finally, I'm in control. But the great excitement is to see what happens if you let the whole thing go. And the dog or the character really runs about, bites everyone in sight, jumps up trees, falls into lakes, gets wet, and you let that happen. That's the excitement of writing plays-to allow the thing to be free but still hold the final leash.
Harold PinterRead
When a person is lucky enough to live inside a story, to live inside an imaginary world, the pains of this world disappear. For as long as the story goes on, reality no longer exists.
Paul AusterRead