“One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.”

—  Oscar Wilde

Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing." by Oscar Wilde?
Oscar Wilde photo
Oscar Wilde 812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900

Related quotes

Samuel Beckett photo

“Nell: Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.Nagg: Oh?Nell: Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more.”

Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish novelist, playwright, and poet

Endgame (1957)

Gore Vidal photo

“Must one have a heart of stone to read The Ballad of Reading Gaol without laughing? (In life, practically no one ever gets to kill the thing he hates, much less loves.) And did not De Profundis plumb for all time the shallows of the most reported love affair of the past hundred years, rivalling even that of Wallis and David, its every nuance (O Bosie!) known to all, while trembling rosy lips yet form, over and over again, those doom-laden syllables The Cadogan Hotel?”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Oscar Wilde. Yet again. Why?
Opening lines to "Oscar Wilde: On the Skids Again"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

George Gordon Byron photo

“To be perfectly original one should think much and read little, and this is impossible, for one must have read before one has learnt to think.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement
Hans Christian Andersen photo

“She laughed and danced with the thought of death in her heart.”

Hans Christian Andersen book The Little Mermaid

Source: The Little Mermaid

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“No one makes the heart of a little home circle entirely their own, without some very sweet gifts of nature — we must love to be beloved.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

No. 2. Waverley — ROSE BRADWARDINE.
Literary Remains

Joseph Goebbels photo

“A child laughs when it feels joy and cries when it feels pain. Both things, laughing and crying, it does with its whole heart. We have all become so tall and so clever. We know so much and we have read so much. But one thing we have forgot: to laugh and cry like the children do.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Das Kind lacht, wenn es Freude hat, und weint, wenn es Schmerz empfindet. Bei beidem, bei Lachen und Weinen ist sein ganzes Herz dabei. Wir sind alle so groß und klug geworden. Wir wissen so viel und haben so viel gelesen. Aber eines haben wir vergessen: zu lachen und zu weinen wie die Kinder.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Margaret Atwood photo

“At moments like this I envy those who have found a safe haven in which to bestow their hearts; or perhaps I envy them for having a heart to bestow. I often feel that I myself am without one, and possess in its stead merely a heart shaped stone.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Vincent Van Gogh photo

“It is with the reading of books the same as with looking at pictures; one must, without doubt, without hesitations, with assurance, admire what is beautiful.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo

“They were laughed at or pelted with stones.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), V
Context: All became so jealous of the rights of their own personality that they did their very utmost to curtail and destroy them in others, and made that the chief thing in their lives. Slavery followed, even voluntary slavery; the weak eagerly submitted to the strong, on condition that the latter aided them to subdue the still weaker. Then there were saints who came to these people, weeping, and talked to them of their pride, of their loss of harmony and due proportion, of their loss of shame. They were laughed at or pelted with stones.

Related topics