“One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.”
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Oscar Wilde 812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900Related quotes

‘To Mr. Attwood’, Political Register (5 May 1821), p. 343
1820s

Source: Alone (1938), Ch. 6
Context: When a man achieves a fair measure of harmony within himself and his family circle, he achieves peace; and a nation made up of such individuals and groups is a happy nation. As the harmony of a star in its course is expressed by rhythm and grace, so the harmony of a man's life-course is expressed by happiness; this, I believe, is the prime desire of mankind.
"The universe is an almost untouched reservoir of significance and value," and man need not be discouraged because he cannot fathom it. His view of life is no more than a flash in time. The details and distractions are infinite. It is only natural, therefore, that we should never see the picture whole. But the universal goal — the attainment of harmony — is apparent. The very act of perceiving this goal and striving constantly toward it does much in itself to bring us closer, and therefore, becomes an end in itself.

IX. On Providence, Fate, and Fortune.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: It is impossible that there should be so much providence in the last details, and none in the first principles. Then the arts of prophecy and of healing, which are part of the cosmos, come of the good providence of the Gods.

“My life is a rather grim one. One day I shall perhaps describe it to you in great detail.”
Source: A Confederacy of Dunces

Television documentary 'Queen Margrethe of Denmark', BBC & Jørgen Bonfils, 30:27, 28 April 1974.
Life Philosophy
Source: The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1951), Ch. 1: The Naked and the Nude

Source: The 80/20 principle: the secret of achieving more with less (1999), p. 58