“It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things.”

— Oscar Wilde , book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

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Oscar Wilde 812

Irish writer and poet 1854–1900

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

“I loved all the boys with soft sad eyes, and lost souls.”

Grace Coddington (1941) former model and the creative director of American Vogue magazine

Source: Grace: A Memoir

“The sad truth is that the truth is sad.”

Daniel Handler book The Carnivorous Carnival

Lemony Snicket
The Carnivorous Carnival (2002)

“She was sad about what happened to Kostos. And someplace under that, she was sad that people like Bee and Kostos, who had lost everything, were still open to love, and she, who'd lost nothing, was not.”

Ann Brashares The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Source: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

“I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XXXIII).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when every thing is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me — now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives. I could do it, and none could hinder me; but where is the use? I don't care for striking — I can't take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is far from being the case. I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.