Cynics
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde wrote, in “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, “Nowadays, people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” And this was his definition of a cynic.
Posts
Brute Reason
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.”
People of Absolutes
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.”
The Luxury of Self-Reproach
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.”
Keep Love in Your Heart
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.”
The Biographers of Great Men
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes his biography.”
What Great Artists See
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.”
Other People
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
Waiting
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”
The Beginning of Romance
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
The Loved
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde asked, “Who, being loved, is poor?”
Life’s Two Tragedies
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”
A Choice of Enemies
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”
Temptation Paradox
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “I can resist everything except temptation.”
We are All in the Gutter
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
To Live or Exist
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde wrote, “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
The Nature of Truth
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde wrote, in “The Importance of Being Earnest”, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
The “Virtue” of Patriotism
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ As Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”