“An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be.”

— Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Lady Bracknell, Act I
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be." by Oscar Wilde?

Oscar Wilde812

Irish writer and poet 1854–1900

Related quotes

“[A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.”

Rex Stout book Fer-de-Lance

Source: Fer-de-Lance

“A poor girl may have an illusion that a prince will come and fetch her home. It is possible, some such cases have occurred. That the Messiah will come and found a golden age is much less probable.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Source: 1920s, The Future of an Illusion (1927), Ch. 6

“Disillusionment, pain, unpleasant surprise, all were part of growing up.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Marianne Trilogy, Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods (1988), Chapter 1 (p. 6)

“If you plan for the worst, all surprises are pleasant.”

Robert Jordan The Shadow Rising

Gaul
(15 September 1992)
Variant: Always plan for the worst, that way all your surprises will be pleasant ones.
Source: The Shadow Rising

“If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise," said the seer. "If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 102.

“True learning comes from engaging in discourse with those who are profoundly different. Your mind may not be swayed, but the interaction should open up your eyes.”

Edgar Bronfman, Sr. (1929–2013) Canadian-American businessman

http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2012/10/09/bronfman-why-civil-discourse-is-imperative-for-inter-jewish-dialogue/11782.

“I hope it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that a big part of male homosexual behavior is interest in young boys.”

Ben Stein (1944) actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

Hypocrisy, Democrat Style, The American Spectator, 2 October 2006, 2007-06-20 http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10434,

“Everyone has an individual background. Someone may come from Python, someone else may come from Perl, and they may be surprised by different aspects of the language. Then they come up to me and say, 'I was surprised by this feature of the language, so Ruby violates the principle of least surprise.' Wait. Wait. The principle of least surprise is not for you only. The principle of least surprise means principle of least my surprise. And it means the principle of least surprise after you learn Ruby very well. For example, I was a C++ programmer before I started designing Ruby. I programmed in C++ exclusively for two or three years. And after two years of C++ programming, it still surprises me.”

Yukihiro Matsumoto (1965) Japanese computer scientist

Yukihiro Matsumoto " The Philosophy of Ruby, A Conversation with Yukihiro Matsumoto, Part I http://www.artima.com/intv/ruby4.html" by Bill Venners on 2003-09-29 (Artima Developer

“To be alone with the girl to whom he is not engaged, is a man's delight; — to be alone with the man to whom she is engaged is the woman's.”

Anthony Trollope book The Eustace Diamonds

The Eustace Diamonds, Ch. 18

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!”

Roman Polanski (1933) Polish-French film director, producer, writer, actor, and rapist

Interview https://books.google.ca/books?id=umhoFsnYri8C with Martin Amis (1979), published in Visiting Mrs Nabokov : And Other Excursions (1993), this was modified to censor the word "fuck" when quoted in "Roman Polanski: 'Everyone else fancies little girls too'" by Michael Deacon http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/michaeldeacon/100011795/roman-polanski-everyone-else-fancies-little-girls-too/

“An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Oscar Wilde812

Related quotes

Related topics