“What fire does not destroy, it hardens”

— Oscar Wilde, book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What fire does not destroy, it hardens" by Oscar Wilde?

Oscar Wilde812

Irish writer and poet 1854–1900

Related quotes

“I'm not going to be hardened by these people, to these things, I'm not going to let them destroy my feelings or my emotions.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

Who The Fuck is Pete Doherty (2005)
People

“It is precisely what he does not know which may destroy him.”

Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist

X magazine (1959-62)
Context: The Art of painting is itself an intensely personal activity. It may be labouring the obvious to say so but it is too little recognised in art journalism now that a picture is a unique and private event in the life of the painter: an object made alone with a man and a blank canvas... A real painting is something which happens to the painter once in a given minute; it is unique in that it will never happen again and in this sense is an impossible object. It is judged by the painter simply as a success or failure without qualification. And it is something which happens in life not in art: a picture which was merely the product of art would not be very interesting and could tell us nothing we were not already aware of. The old saying, “what you don’t know can’t hurt you”, expresses the opposite idea to that which animates the painter before his canvas. It is precisely what he does not know which may destroy him.

“Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.”

Maya Angelou book Gather Together in My Name

Gather Together in My Name (1974), p. 17.

“Christians well know that the much-decorated statue of the Church, as it now stands, is not of pure chiseled marble, but of clay, cemented together by blood and tears and hardened in the fires of hatred and persecution.”

Virchand Gandhi (1864–1901) Jain scholar who represented Jainism at the first World Parliament of Religions in 1893

Christian Missions: A Triangular Debate, Before the Nineteenth Century Club of New York (1895)

“Loss either teaches you to persist in the face of suffering, or hardens you into a bitter cynic. Sometimes, it does a little of both.”

Grace Slick (1939) American musician, writer and painter

Somebody to Love? (1998)

“Territories were acquired by fire and sword. Cities were destroyed by fire and sword. Hundreds of thousands of human beings fell by fire and sword. Even conversion to Christianity was attempted by fire and sword.”

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…

On the Completion of the Bunker Hill Monument (1843)
Context: Spain stooped on South America, like a vulture on its prey. Every thing was force. Territories were acquired by fire and sword. Cities were destroyed by fire and sword. Hundreds of thousands of human beings fell by fire and sword. Even conversion to Christianity was attempted by fire and sword.