Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid. Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shillyshallying with the question is absurd.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of decisiveness in life.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde critiques a character's indecision regarding a serious matter, highlighting how wavering on important choices can be seen as foolishness. It suggests that making a definitive choice is essential, rather than lingering in uncertainty, which can lead to an absurd situation.
Themes
DecisivenessIndecisionChoiceAbsurdLife
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about the importance of decision-making.
More from Oscar Wilde
All quotes →London 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.
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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.
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His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
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Things in which we do not take joy are either a burden upon our minds to be got rid of at any cost; or they are useful, and therefore in temporary and partial relation to us, becoming burdensome when their utility is lost; or they are like wandering vagabonds, loitering for a moment on the outskirts of our recognition, and then passing on. A thing is only completely our own when it is a thing of joy to us.
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The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.
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There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.
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