“The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to someone else, if she is plain.”
Oscar Wilde · The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895
quolira
quolira.com
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
800 / 1172
About this quote
Meaning
Wilde is arguing that people are most guarded when speaking directly as themselves. The social pressures of reputation, judgment, and consequence make honest self-expression almost impossible in plain conversation. A mask, whether literal or figurative, removes those pressures and allows a person to speak without fear of personal consequences. Paradoxically, the disguise becomes the route to sincerity.
Context
This observation appears in Intentions, a collection of critical essays published in 1891. The book is written largely in dialogue form, which is itself a kind of mask: Wilde uses fictional speakers to advance ideas he might not have wanted to own outright. The essay from which this line comes, "The Critic as Artist," explores the relationship between personality, art, and truth. The whole collection is an argument that artifice and performance are not the enemies of truth but its most reliable vehicles.
About the author
Oscar Wilde was an Irish writer born in Dublin in 1854. He became one of the most celebrated figures of late Victorian literary culture, known for his plays, his novel, his poetry, and his brilliantly epigrammatic conversation. Wilde had a deep philosophical interest in the relationship between art and life, and he consistently argued that style and surface were not shallow concerns but serious ones. He died in Paris in 1900.
Up next
“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.”
Oscar Wilde · The Soul of Man Under Socialism, 1891
“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?”
Oscar Wilde · attributed, widely documented
“The books one reads in childhood, and perhaps most of all the bad and good bad books, create in one's mind a sort of false map of the world.”
Oscar Wilde · De Profundis, 1905
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
Oscar Wilde · Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892
“The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.”
Oscar Wilde · A Woman of No Importance, 1893
“He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.”
Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890
“The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.”
Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890
“To define is to limit.”
Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890
“Yet each man kills the thing he loves.”
Oscar Wilde · The Ballad of Reading Gaol, 1898
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890
“I can resist everything except temptation.”
Oscar Wilde · Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892
