“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
Oscar Wilde · The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895
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To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
About this quote
Meaning
Wilde frames self-love not as vanity or selfishness but as a sustained, nurturing relationship with one's own self. By calling it a "lifelong romance," he gives the idea warmth and continuity: just as a good romantic relationship requires attention, patience, and genuine affection, so does a healthy relationship with oneself. The line gently turns conventional moral warnings against self-regard on their head.
Context
The line comes from "An Ideal Husband," a play Wilde wrote and saw performed in 1895, the same remarkably productive year that also brought "The Importance of Being Earnest." The play examines public reputation, private integrity, and the ways people present themselves to the world. Against that backdrop, a remark about self-love carries extra weight: Wilde is nudging his audience to consider that knowing and valuing yourself honestly may be the foundation for anything else of worth in life.
About the author
Oscar Wilde was an Irish-born writer who became a central figure in the aesthetic and literary culture of late Victorian Britain. He worked across drama, fiction, poetry, and criticism, and his plays in particular combined sparkling surface wit with genuine moral and social intelligence. His personal life became very public during his lifetime, and the contrast between his celebrated social persona and the suffering he later endured adds a poignant dimension to his writings on identity and self-knowledge. He died in Paris in 1900.
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