The State is to make what is useful. The individual is to make what is beautiful. – Oscar Wilde
There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about lifes sores the better. – Oscar Wilde
Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to. – Oscar Wilde
There is luxury in self-reproach…. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us. – Oscar Wilde
The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it — a State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes — will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished. – John Stuart Mill