"A man whose desire is to be..." - Quote by Oscar Wilde
A man whose desire is to be something separate from himself, to be a member of Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a prominent solicitor, or a judge, or something equally tedious, invariably succeeds in being what he wants to be. That is his punishment. Those who want a mask have to wear it.
More by Oscar Wilde
“Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.”
“The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result.”
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”
More on Ambition
More on Conformity
“Do you understand now why books are hated and feared? Because they reveal the pores on the face of life. The comfortable people want only the faces of the full moon, wax, faces without pores, hairless, expressionless.”
“The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong.”
“I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.”