Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Youth! There is nothing like youth. The middle-aged are mortgaged to Life. The old are in Life's lumber
Interpretation
What this quote means
Youth is a unique and valuable stage of life, unlike any other.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde highlights the preciousness of youth, suggesting that it possesses a distinct vitality and freedom that is lost in middle age and old age. He contrasts the carefree nature of youth with the burdens and regrets that often accompany later stages of life, where individuals are constrained by responsibilities and the passage of time.
Themes
YouthLifeFreedomMiddle AgeOld Age
In practice
Example use cases
In a graduation speech to emphasize the importance of seizing the moment.
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.
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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.
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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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Similar quotes
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(existing's tricky:but to live's a gift)
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The emotionally sound person should be able to take risks, to ask himself what he really would like to do in life, and then to try to do this, even though he has to risk defeat or failure. He should be adventurous (though not necessarily foolhardy); be willing to try almost anything once, just to see how he likes it; and look forward to some breaks in his usual life routines.
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She was unequal to anyone's wistfulness. She had made too little of her life. Its loneliness shamed her like a crime.
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You play the hand you're dealt. I think the game's worthwhile.
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The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.
Gustav MahlerRead