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Quote by Oscar Wilde

Work

Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis

The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde is a definitive compilation of the renowned author's writings. It features a diverse array of Wilde's creative output, showcasing his talent across various literary genres. The collection includes his plays such as "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "Lady Windermere's Fan", his poetic works, short stories, and a selection of his essays, with a special inclusion of the poignant letter De Profundis, which he wrote from prison. more

Author

Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde, born on October 16, 1854, in Ireland, and died on November 30, 1900, was a renowned Irish writer, playwright, and poet. His works are known for their wit, satire, and unique style, with notable works including 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' and 'Lady Windermere's Fan'. more

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“If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love - You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point.”

“We consult astrology charts like the Babylonians, try to make our children into our own image with a firm hand like the Romans, elbow others to get a breath-quickening glimpse of the queen in her ritual procession, and confess to the priests and attend church. And we wonder why, with all this power capital drawn from so many sources, we are deeply anxious about the meaning of our lives. The reason is plain enough: none of these, nor all of them taken together, represents an integrated world conception into which we fit ourselves with pure belief and trust.”

“You've heard tales of beauty and the beast. How a fair maid falls in love with a monster and sees the beauty of his soul beneath the hideous visage. But you've never heard the tale of the handsome man falling for the monstrous woman and finding joy in her love, because it doesn't happen, not even in a story-teller's tale.”

“How can love be worthy of its name if one selects solely the pretty things and leaves out the hardships? It is easy to enjoy the good and dislike the bad. Anybody can do that. The real challenge is to love the good and the bad together, not because you need to take the rough with the smooth but because you need to go beyond such descriptions and accept love in its entirety.”