There are sins whose fascination is more in the memory than in the doing
of them, strange triumphs that gratify the pride more than the passions
and give to the intellect a quickened sense of joy, greater than they
bring or can ever bring to the senses.
of them, strange triumphs that gratify the pride more than the passions
and give to the intellect a quickened sense of joy, greater than they
bring or can ever bring to the senses.
Oscar Wilde - Poetry
In the common world of fact the wicked are not punished nor the good
rewarded. Success is given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak.
Nothing should be able to harm a man except himself. Nothing should be
able to rob a man at all. What a man really has is what is in him. What
is outside of him should be a matter of no importance.
Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age. I
consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age
is a form of the grossest immorality.
Perplexity and mistrust fan affection into passion, and so bring about
those beautiful tragedies that alone make life worth living. Women once
felt this, while men did not, and so women once ruled the world.
Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's, face. It cannot be
concealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices. There are no such
things.
If a wretched man has a vice it shows itself in the lines of his mouth,
the drop of his eyelids, the moulding of his hands even.
There are sins whose fascination is more in the memory than in the doing
of them, strange triumphs that gratify the pride more than the passions
and give to the intellect a quickened sense of joy, greater than they
bring or can ever bring to the senses.
No civilised man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilised man ever
knows what a pleasure is.
As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but one whose growth is
arrested. If you want to mar a nature you have merely to reform it.
Socialism itself will be of value simply because it will lead to
individualism.
Some years ago people went about the country saying that property has
duties. It is perfectly true. Property not merely has duties, but has so
many duties that its possession to any large extent is a bore. If
property had simply pleasures we could stand it, but its duties make it
unbearable.
It is through joy that the individualism of the future will develop
itself. Christ made no attempt to reconstruct society, and consequently
the individualism that He preached to man could be realised only through
pain or in solitude.
Most people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the
prose of life. To have ruined oneself over poetry is an honour.
The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad
artists. Good artists exist simply on what they make, and consequently
are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.
What are the virtues?
