Does Oscar Wilde have the best quotes of all time?

[The_Yearning]

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/o/oscar_wilde.html


Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical and prosaic. It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

[outbreak]

Churchill had some great quotes.

[KyrieTheFuture]

Mohammed has my favorite

[RidonKs]

you know... Nietzsche says "out of chaos comes order" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On73aHpgdSQ)

[SunsN07BookIt]

Hey there little boy with skin so fair
Do you think by chance I can see your underwear

Wasn't that a Wilde original?

[ZeN]

"I have this weird thing that if I sleep with someone they're going to take my creativity from me through my v@gina."


Lady Gaga

[ROCSteady]

Yes.


Oscar Wilde one of the most clever people in history of man.

[RidonKs]

question

if you guys were cruising down your facebook news feed and clicked on a link titled "these 14 quotes are so brilliant and amazingly insightful" and they were actually the 14 best of oscar's best but no author was provided on the page and each quote was signed "anonymous"... would you be impressed? would you even read all 14 quotes? would you even click on the link in the first place?

[ROCSteady]

One of my favorite quotes was always,

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."-Oscar Wilde

[ZeN]

question

if you guys were cruising down your facebook news feed and clicked on a link titled "these 14 quotes are so brilliant and amazingly insightful" and they were actually the 14 best of oscar's best but no author was provided on the page and each quote was signed "anonymous"... would you be impressed? would you even read all 14 quotes? would you even click on the link in the first place?
1 outta 3 I'm sure

[JEFFERSON MONEY]

Ya hes clevah but I like groucho a bit better

[The_Yearning]

question

if you guys were cruising down your facebook news feed and clicked on a link titled "these 14 quotes are so brilliant and amazingly insightful" and they were actually the 14 best of oscar's best but no author was provided on the page and each quote was signed "anonymous"... would you be impressed? would you even read all 14 quotes? would you even click on the link in the first place?

Yeah. I found out about Oscar Wilde by reading excerpts that I had no idea who wrote it or where it was from so I had to google it. Only a woman would probably be unimpressed and I doubt Oscar Wilde quotes would ever make its way to FB in the first place.

[RoseCity07]

So I take it this guy was ugly and pissed at all the alphas getting hot women.:oldlol:

He was beta yes srs.

[outbreak]

So I take it this guy was ugly and pissed at all the alphas getting hot women.:oldlol:

He was beta yes srs.

:facepalm

You need to retake high school english

[T_L_P]

So I take it this guy was ugly and pissed at all the alphas getting hot women.:oldlol:

He was beta yes srs.

:biggums:

[RoseCity07]

:facepalm

You need to retake high school english

Hey asshole, it's English. I've taken 2 terms of Shakespeare, critical theory, and 4 college writing classes. I don't need to do anything.

[Nastradamus]

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/o/oscar_wilde.html

Bertrand Russell is my favorite

[DonD13]

he's good

i'd pick Nietzsche

[eliteballer]

Thomas Jefferson and Churchill are hard to top.

[The_Yearning]

Thomas Jefferson and Churchill are hard to top.

They ain't got enough firepower for Wilde.

[Nick Young]

So I take it this guy was ugly and pissed at all the alphas getting hot women.:oldlol:

He was beta yes srs.
Wrong, he was an alpha as phuck classy bisexual gent, and the inspiration to all hipsters style of dress to this day.
http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/32600000/Oscar-Wilde-oscar-wilde-32649611-400-674.jpg
http://www.foppishdandy.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/oscarwilde.jpg

[dunksby]

Anything to declare?

[Thorpesaurous]

Mark Twain can produce quite the coffee table book collection too.

[CasterL]

Wilde is a legend.

Some of favorites include.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

And when he was asked if hehad anything to declare at customs.

I have noting to declare except my genius

[Dresta]

I'll plug a lesser known figure in Mencken - his prose is probably the most entertaining and enjoyable non-fiction prose i've read:

'Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.'

'The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.'

'The trouble with Ellis is that he tells the truth, which is the unsafest of all things to tell. His crime is that he is a man who prefers facts to illusions, and knows what he is talking about. Such men are never popular. The public taste for merchandise is of a precisely opposite character. The way to please is to proclaim in a confidant manner, not what is true, but what is merely comforting. This is what is called building up. This is constructive criticism.’

'The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.'

'It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.'

'Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.'

'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.'

'An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.'

'A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.'

'the one permanent emotion of the inferior man, as of all the simpler mammals, is fear – fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants beyond everything else is safety. His instincts incline him toward a society so organized that it will protect him at all hazards, and not only against perils to his hide but also against assaults on his mind – against the need to grapple with unaccustomed problems, to weigh ideas, to think things out for himself, to scrutinize the platitudes upon which his everyday thinking is based.’

:rockon:

[StephHamann]

If she likes all your photos, she wants the D

Plato

[Trollsmasher]

[QUOTE=Dresta]I'll plug a lesser known figure in Mencken - his prose is probably the most entertaining and enjoyable non-fiction prose i've read:

'Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.'

'The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.'

'The trouble with Ellis is that he tells the truth, which is the unsafest of all things to tell. His crime is that he is a man who prefers facts to illusions, and knows what he is talking about. Such men are never popular. The public taste for merchandise is of a precisely opposite character. The way to please is to proclaim in a confidant manner, not what is true, but what is merely comforting. This is what is called building up. This is constructive criticism.

[Nick Young]

Churchill also has awesome quotes.

It's probably top 5:
Wilde
Churchill
Sun Tzu
Plato
Mark Twain

in no order, I can't rank those 5.

[Jailblazers7]

question

if you guys were cruising down your facebook news feed and clicked on a link titled "these 14 quotes are so brilliant and amazingly insightful" and they were actually the 14 best of oscar's best but no author was provided on the page and each quote was signed "anonymous"... would you be impressed? would you even read all 14 quotes? would you even click on the link in the first place?

Would not click on the link. I hate when people post shit like that.

[RidonKs]

those mencken quotes are great


'Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.'
this one though only brings to mind a quote i think i've posted on this site before


Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests.

Jefferson obviously isn't taking one side or the other. but while democracy may be a pathetic belief, it does not presume the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. it imposes collective restraint on individual madness. hence, democracy enables policies that are not necessarily the most wise or clever or pragmatic or even logical, but unquestionably these policies, having to satisfy so many interests at once, are the safest. safe policy should be our number one priority; "do no harm" first and foremost. its common sense.

[Dresta]

You've got your definitions wrong there: what imposes collective restraint on 'individual madness' (though madness is an inaccurate description of this) is the government, and a government by no means must be democratic, certainly not as democratic as it has become.

Democracy is by definition a belief in 'the collective wisdom of individual ignorance' - pure democracy is effectively political decision making being controlled by the majority. It is placing faith in the majority of people to make the best decision, and most of the constituents of said majority must be highly ignorant, relatively speaking.

Jefferson was despairing at the levels of democratic demagogy the Republic had descended into during the years leading up to his death, being particularly perturbed at the popularity of the vulgar, violent and ill-educated Andrew Jackson, during whose tenure as President the faith in democracy as an ideology overcame its constitutional restraints.

[CeltsGarlic]

Churchill is amazing, but my pick is Albert Camus.

[riseagainst]

"patriotism is the virtue of the vicious"

[SpecialQue]

So I take it this guy was ugly and pissed at all the alphas getting hot women.:oldlol:

He was beta yes srs.

Thanks for the biggest laugh of the day. I'm surprised more people didn't catch that. :lol

[Nick Young]

Thanks for the biggest laugh of the day. I'm surprised more people didn't catch that. :lol
Wilde banged both men and women and was married to a woman, dawg.

[kurple]

"I have this weird thing that if I sleep with someone they're going to take my creativity from me through my d!ck."


Lady Gaga
fixd

[Sarcastic]

Yogi Berra is the GOAT

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/y/yogi_berra.html




You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six.



You can observe a lot by just watching.



Baseball is 90 percent mental and the other half is physical.

[BRabbiT]

Einstein



"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value"

"I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking"

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough"

"Only one who devotes himself to a cause w/his whole strength & soul can be a true master. For this reason, mastery demands all of a person"

[RidonKs]

You've got your definitions wrong there: what imposes collective restraint on 'individual madness' (though madness is an inaccurate description of this) is the government, and a government by no means must be democratic, certainly not as democratic as it has become.

Democracy is by definition a belief in 'the collective wisdom of individual ignorance' - pure democracy is effectively political decision making being controlled by the majority. It is placing faith in the majority of people to make the best decision, and most of the constituents of said majority must be highly ignorant, relatively speaking.

Jefferson was despairing at the levels of democratic demagogy the Republic had descended into during the years leading up to his death, being particularly perturbed at the popularity of the vulgar, violent and ill-educated Andrew Jackson, during whose tenure as President the faith in democracy as an ideology overcame its constitutional restraints.
no. sorry man. we can argue about definitions if you'd like. i think it's always a good plays to start.

the definition of democracy needn't have ANYTHING to do with wisdom. which was precisely my point. maybe some people believe they go hand in hand. i certainly don't.

but an appropriate definition of democracy is quite different... i would define it as "public participation in policy formation". or a "reflection of the public will in policy formation". something like that. and it isn't necessarily restricted to state governments. a union can be more or less democratic (see: grassroots), a company can be more or less democratic (see: cooperatives), a family can be more or less democratic, etc etc etc.

a supporter of democracy must place faith in the majority. and at the same time, as the founding fathers knew well, minorities must be protected also, typically through constitutional means. but that faith in democracy doesn't necessarily have to be grounded in a belief that democratic decision making will lead to better policy or wise policy or pragmatic policy or anything like that. hell an individual could just as well ground his faith in democracy in an empirical belief that democracy in his country will lead to the genocide of a minority that individual happens to despise.

again, democracy needn't have anything to do with wisdom.



as for your first paragraph, of course governments don't have to be democratic. we have a massive history of tyranny and monarchy and oligarchy to demonstrate that. not controversial in the least.

you are right in that, at least in today's world, government is primarily responsible for constraining individual ignorance. we'll forget the ignorance/madness distinction because regardless i think we're on the same page. but must that be the case? and is it always the case? the answer to both those questions is, in my opinion, a resounding no. but i digress.

your mistake is to suppose that the individuals who administer governments, democratic or otherwise, don't require constraints on their individual ignorance. and that's just foolish. of course george bush needed constraints on his presidency to come from somewhere... and one significant place it can and in fact did come from is public protest. it so happens that the hundreds of thousands of anti-war activists who marched in opposition to the iraq war failed to change either the bush administration's or the blair administrations minds.

but in the uk just last fall, during the national debate over whether to join obama's "red line" in striking syrian government targets, parliament voted against cameron's proposal by only 13 votes. and you can bet a significant factor in many of the votes opposed was the enormous uproar of protest that surely lead to hundreds of not thousands of calls placed to mp's by regular average ol' citizens expressing their preference not to get involved in another middle eastern military campaign.

since that time, the united kingdom has in fact involved itself in a military campaign in the exact same region... but for different reasons. the public appears to support the campaign according to polls. a cursory look suggests about 60% are in favour of strikes. in canada, that number is closer to 70%. in the united states, it is no doubt even higher than that.

now maybe you think i'm just rambling on here and avoiding the points in your post and this is precisely what you meant when a few days ago you said my posts are typically incomprehensible. but these are contemporary events that exemplify exactly the topic at hand.

yes government constrains individual citizens and private organizations; drug bans, industrial regulations, rules for driving on the road and touching other people without their consent, tax law, the list goes on and on and on until we start calling it red tape and hating it.

but simultaneously, the public constrains its government through the expressing its will. interest groups, organization, ngo activities, demonstrations and protest, contacting representatives, going to the media, etc etc etc. there are a million ways for even the most ignorant individuals to have a say in public policy. and an even more democratic system would allow even those most ignorant individuals to have even more say in public policy. i think we can both agree that the world is not necessarily as democratic as it could be -- we only disagree on whether thats a good or a bad thing lol. but that democracy still has potential and room to grow is just self-evident.




and finally, as for your historical section, perhaps you can link me to some information on jackson's democratic overreach and jefferson's despair. i'm admittedly not as well read on american history pre-ww1 as you are so i'm not exactly certain what you're referring to there. i don't much care for jackson from what i know of him and i hate demagoguery (**aside, see below) but i don't want to assume i know what you mean.

** can i assume you believe democracy without demagoguery is impossible? that's not me putting words in your mouth, just trying to get a better idea for where you stand.

[sundizz]

Democracy is an oddball concept. I truly don't understand why uneducated people should have a vote.

I think they should get rid of the electoral college. It's nonsense.

In my opinion, only people that have achieved some reasonable degree of "accepted success" should be allowed (required) to vote:

2. Credit score above 650
3. No felonies/outstanding warrants
4. Net worth of $1 million+ or > 800 hours of community service/volunteering

Additionally, they should be required to vote...not just be given the choice. If they don't vote, 20% additional tax on all income. Even more crazier, voting should be a 3 week process. They should be required to attend a computer training/class to learn about the issues and options before voting.

[tpols]

Democracy is an oddball concept. I truly don't understand why uneducated people should have a vote.

I think they should get rid of the electoral college. It's nonsense.

In my opinion, only people that have achieved some reasonable degree of "accepted success" should be allowed (required) to vote:

2. Credit score above 650
3. No felonies/outstanding warrants
4. Net worth of $1 million+ or > 800 hours of community service/volunteering

Additionally, they should be required to vote...not just be given the choice. If they don't vote, 20% additional tax on all income. Even more crazier, voting should be a 3 week process. They should be required to attend a computer training/class to learn about the issues and options before voting.
So if you have money you don't need to be charitable? Basically just let rich people vote lol

[Just2McFly]

[QUOTE=Dresta]

'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.'

'An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.'

'A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.'

'the one permanent emotion of the inferior man, as of all the simpler mammals, is fear

[RidonKs]

Democracy is an oddball concept. I truly don't understand why uneducated people should have a vote.

I think they should get rid of the electoral college. It's nonsense.

In my opinion, only people that have achieved some reasonable degree of "accepted success" should be allowed (required) to vote:

2. Credit score above 650
3. No felonies/outstanding warrants
4. Net worth of $1 million+ or > 800 hours of community service/volunteering

Additionally, they should be required to vote...not just be given the choice. If they don't vote, 20% additional tax on all income. Even more crazier, voting should be a 3 week process. They should be required to attend a computer training/class to learn about the issues and options before voting.
maybe your version :lol

i feel your pain but implementing anything u wrote would cause riots in the friggin streets. except maybe the mandatory learning sessions tho 3 weeks is awfully excessive and thats coming from somebody who cares about this shit.

[Overdrive]

Democracy is an oddball concept. I truly don't understand why uneducated people should have a vote.

I think they should get rid of the electoral college. It's nonsense.

In my opinion, only people that have achieved some reasonable degree of "accepted success" should be allowed (required) to vote:

2. Credit score above 650
3. No felonies/outstanding warrants
4. Net worth of $1 million+ or > 800 hours of community service/volunteering

Additionally, they should be required to vote...not just be given the choice. If they don't vote, 20% additional tax on all income. Even more crazier, voting should be a 3 week process. They should be required to attend a computer training/class to learn about the issues and options before voting.

Good concept, because aristocracy worked out so well over the centuries.

You want the rich to decide the poor's fates, but it's the poor, who put all their money in consumtion and not bank accounts, who pay the rich. System might collapse pretty quick.

Democratic technocracy is worth a try imo. People get to decide between experts and not lawyers. It's retarded that studying law basically allows you to be a financial secretary etc..

[NZStreetBaller]

man is least himself when he talks in his own person, give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.

This explains majority of ISH

[Random_Guy]

Anne Frank:
A part of her being my choice is because of the circumstances she lived understand. Being a victim to the most horrific times in history, she still maintained her optimism and believe in humanity.
Some people call that stupidity, but I believe that is a very powerful gift.
.................................................. ..
~Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.
~In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.
~And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren't any other people living in the world.
~It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
~I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.
.................................................. ..

[RoseCity07]

man is least himself when he talks in his own person, give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.

This explains majority of ISH

Love that coming from a guy with a masked man in his avatar.

[Smoke117]

No, Mark Twain does.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mark_twain.html

[Dresta]

Good concept, because aristocracy worked out so well over the centuries.

You want the rich to decide the poor's fates, but it's the poor, who put all their money in consumtion and not bank accounts, who pay the rich. System might collapse pretty quick.

Democratic technocracy is worth a try imo. People get to decide between experts and not lawyers. It's retarded that studying law basically allows you to be a financial secretary etc..
It is savings that drive investment, which in turn leads to gains in productive capacity and thus increased wealth. If the 'poor' were actually 'poor' then they wouldn't be consuming very much at all anyway. Moreover, it is the rich who support the innovation and economic dynamism that leads to increased standards of living for all - how do you think so many people can afford LCD tvs? smartphones? laptops? all sorts of things that when they first came out were completely unaffordable for most people? It's because rich people bought them first, and if they didn't, most people would never have had access to such products.

A person who consumes all they have immediately is the equivalent of a hunter gatherer, and if everyone had persisted in this then that's what human beings would still be doing. All human progress has come from saving, not consumption. If the labouring of the poor has helped progress in any way it is through the leisure time their work has afforded others, who have in turn made great contributions to science, philosophy, culture, politics etc.

For instance, do you think Benjamin Franklin was of greater service to humanity as a businessman (where he made enough money to retire by 40), or as a man of leisure (where he made great contributions to science, philosophy and statesmanship - remember, a politics was largely devoid of compensation back then, thus it attracted a better character than the present system)?. All democracy has done is change this desire to earn enough to retire from work and pursue what one considers to be a virtuous calling into a constant tendency towards avarice and obscene consumerism. Aristocratic societies rarely regard the acquisition of wealth and the obsession with 'earning one's living' as sacrosanct like democratic societies because the ruling classes already had wealth and so . In this way consumerism, as well as most of the crass and grotesque aspects of the modern age, can be attributed to the democratisation of culture.

That's why concepts such as 'honour' and 'virtue' no longer have any real meaning outside of their utility. They don't make sense to the democratic mentality. The aristocratic system wasn't ideal but it wouldn't be leading us on a course of self-destruction like democracy is, and remember, the best form of government is really some combination of the two. It wasn't until 1913 that the Senate was opened up to the popular vote, and in the few decades following that we had:
1. Populace foolishly led into pointless European war in 1917.
2. The triumph of the prohibitionist movement in both drugs and alcohol.
3. The triumph of Keynesian economics.

Three populist campaigns, driven primarily by the wants and desires of the masses, and the ease with which they are misled. Here you have the genesis of American involvement in the rest of the world (compared with the isolationist and desire to show superiority by example rather than war mentality held by the Whigs), the genesis of American quasi police-state, and the genesis of an economic doctrine that is gradually eroding the Western world.

[Dresta]

A funny Mencken quote on this:

'The American people, true enough, are sheep. Worse, they are donkeys. Yet worse, to borrow from their own dialect, they are goats. They are constantly bamboozled and exploited by small minorities of their own number, by determined and ambitious individuals, and even by exterior groups. The business of victimizing them is a lucrative business, an exact science, and a delicate and lofty art … Its lowest rewards is a seat in Congress, or a job as a Prohibition agent … its highest reward is immortality.'

[RidonKs]

J Swift

"It is useless to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into in the first place"

[bballnoob1192]

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.