“The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Oscar Wilde 812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900Related quotes

There There (2018)
Source: As quoted in [Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo, There There by Tommy Orange review – Native American stories, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/18/there-there-tommy-orange-review, 9 August 2018, The Guardian, July 18, 2018]

Source: In the Belly of the Beast: Letters From Prison
“Life marks us all down, so it's just as well that we start out by overpricing ourselves.”
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

“The basis of insincerity is the idealized image we hold of ourselves and wish to impose on others.”
July 1932 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ps_DtS_PFb4C&q=%22The+basis+of+insincerity+is+the+idealized+image+we+hold+of+ourselves+and+wish+to+impose+on+others%22&pg=PT141#v=onepage, The Diary Of Anaïs Nin, Volume One (1931-1934)
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

"The Ballad of the Girlie Man" http://www.milkmag.org/CHBERNSTEIN6.html, Milk Magazine, no. 6, 2005. Anthologized in Girlie Man (2006), ISBN 0226044068.