“The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever.”

— Oscar Wilde , book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

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 "The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever." by Oscar Wilde?

Oscar Wilde 812

Irish writer and poet 1854–1900

Related quotes

“Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty

“No public man in these islands ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Our Theatres In The Nineties (1930)
1930s

“When you find a man you wish to marry, Tessa, remember this: You will know what kind of man he is not by the things he says, but by the things he does.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“Man is a real man, and can live and act manfully in this world, not in the strength of opinions, not according to what he thinks, but according to what he is.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Preface, Second edition (21 June 1849)
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

“The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“It is said that great leaders are born, not made. The saying is true to this degree, that no man can persuade people to do what he wants them to do, unless he genuinely likes people, and believes that what he wants them to do is to their own advantage.”

Bruce Fairchild Barton book The Man Nobody Knows

Source: The Man Nobody Knows (1924), Ch. 4 : His Method

“The doctrine of toleration requires a positive as well as a negative statement. It is not only wrong to burn a man on account of his creed, but it is right to encourage the open avowal and defence of every opinion sincerely maintained. Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.”

Leslie Stephen (1832–1904) British author, literary critic, and first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography

The Nineteenth Century, vol. 13 (1883) p. 665

“But no public man in these islands ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means; and I have no reason to hope that Mr Coote may be an exception to the rule.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

"The Living Pictures", The Saturday Review, LXXIX (April 6, 1895), 443, reprinted in Our Theatres in the Nineties (1932). Vol. 1. London: Constable & Co. 79-86
1890s

“In private, you got what you got in public. He treated everyone the same. He was just a very warm man, and he worked hard to impress upon his children the value of kindness. He was biologically incapable of gossip. There was no smallness in him.”

Ron Reagan (1958) talk radio host and political analyst

On his father, Ronald Reagan, in Deborah Solomon, " The Son Also Rises http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/27/magazine/27QUESTIONS.html", New York Times (27 June 2004).

“Lastly, what is history for? This is perhaps a harder question than the others; a man who answers it will have to reflect rather more widely than a man who answers the three we have answered already. He must reflect not only on historical thinking but on other things as well, because to say that something is `for' something implies a distinction between A and B, where A is good for something and B is that for which something is good. But I will suggest an answer, and express the opinion that no historian would reject it, although the further questions to which it gives rise are numerous and difficult.
My answer is that history is `for' human self-knowledge. It is generally thought to be of importance to man that he should know himself: where knowing himself means knowing not his merely personal peculiarities, the things that distinguish him from other men, but his nature as man. Knowing yourself means knowing, first, what it is to be a man; secondly, knowing what it is to be the kind of man you are; and thirdly, knowing what it is to be the man you are and nobody else is. Knowing yourself means knowing what you can do; and since nobody knows what he can do until he tries, the only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is.”

R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943) British historian and philosopher

Source: The Idea of History (1946), p. 10

“The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Oscar Wilde 812

Related quotes

Related topics