“Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always prevent us from carrying them out.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings
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Oscar Wilde 812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900Related quotes

Matt, Act II, sc. i, air 19
The Beggar's Opera (1728)
Source: Drenai series, The Swords of Night and Day, Ch. 10

"Ich bin ein Berliner" Speech, June 26, 1963, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ich_bin_ein_Berliner_Speech_(June_26,_1963)_John_Fitzgerald_Kennedy_trimmed.theora.ogv
Context: Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. [... ] While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.

“That the situation is hopeless should not prevent us from doing our best.”
letter to Bill Vogt, 21 January 1946, quoted in Curt Meine, Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work, p. 478.
1940s

The Big Picture, 1996
1990s, 1990
Source: [Pierce, 1976-2002, 125]

“Mirrors, those revealers of the truth, are hated; that does not prevent them from being of use.”
Letter To M. Daelli on Les Misérables (1862)
Context: This book, Les Misérables, is no less your mirror than ours. Certain men, certain castes, rise in revolt against this book, — I understand that. Mirrors, those revealers of the truth, are hated; that does not prevent them from being of use. As for myself, I have written for all, with a profound love for my own country, but without being engrossed by France more than by any other nation. In proportion as I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity.