Wilde Quotes

Hence my August Letter from the Editor which featured quotes from the late 19th century Irish dandy, Oscar Wilde. I took sometime this month to review an essay he wrote which we all may be familiar with from our high school history, English, or psychology classes. I read over “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” an essay eloquently expressing Wilde’s Utopian viewpoint of society that heralds principals of “true, beautiful, healthy individualism” suggesting that strong creative personal expression should be the modi operandi of civilization as opposed to oppressive and “demoralizing” modes of authority (i.e. property/government) man place upon other men, which in effect, hinder the attainment of true happiness among man in life.

A late writer for Britain’s “The Observer”, George Orwell summarized The Soul of Man Under Socialism as Wilde’s vision of a society where machines/mechanization will free human effort from the burden of necessity where “in effect, the world will be populated by artists, each striving after perfection in the way that seems best to him,” [source].

“It will be a marvelous thing – the true personality of man – when we see it. It will grow naturally and simply, flowerlike, or as a tree grows. It will not be at discord. It will never argue or dispute. It will not prove things. It will know everything. And yet it will not busy itself about knowledge. It will have wisdom. Its value will not be measured by material things. It will have nothing. And yet it will have everything, and whatever one takes from it, it will still have, so rich will it be. It will not be always meddling with others, or asking them to be like itself. It will love them because they will be different. And yet while it will not meddle with others, it will help all, as a beautiful thing helps us, by being what it is. The personality of man will be very wonderful. It will be as wonderful as the personality of a child.” ~ Excerpted from The Soul of Man Under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism really speaks to the appreciation of art, fashion, and creative expression as an individual in our modern industrialized and economically collective society. It offers notions of thought that we can incorporate to our lifestyles that will bring a greater value of life to those who feel they can offer their own ray of light in this human experience. Orwell suggested that, “Wilde’s version of Socialism could only be realized in a world not only far richer but also technically far more advanced than the present one,” but more than 60 years after Orwell’s views were published in “The Observer”, it can be argued that civilization has made many leaps and bounds in technology which I am sure Orwell himself could not fathom in the 1940’s. Who’s to say that along with the realization of greater technologies that we cannot adjust our conventional wisdom to match the Utopian vision Wilde postulated in 1891, 60 years prior to Orwell’s review.

EDITOR'S LETTER: August 2012

After doing a lot of thinking about Acceptance last month, it was funny that towards the end of the month I received this email from Will and Guy’s Joke of the Day . It was a series of quotes from the popular 19^th century author, wit, and quite the dandy, Oscar Wilde. Please take these in, for in my fashion they speak a lot for the ironic truths of our world.


Statue of Oscar Wilde by Danny Osborne in Dublin's Merrion Square

After reading these funny observations about life, parlaying from the subject of Acceptance, I knew that this month would just have to be about how being “Smart is Beautiful”! As I said in my last Style Maven post, ignorance is debilitating, and keeps us from learning the truths of life we need to know in order to be the people we need to be so we can help others.There is a promotional page that runs in Vogue that always proclaims the phrase “Smart is beautiful” and I have to agree, full-heartedly. Why do you think Vogue is such a revered magazine for the fashion onlooker? Because since 1892, they have documented the smart people who have been able to leave a significant mark in the history of their culture, and how they were able to rise above the masses and manifest an individual persona that left a certain impression on the people of their time. As I have found, no one knows everything there is to know about life, so it would make most sense to say that smart people are those that tend to put in the thought power and energy into making the most sense of a particular subject (i.e. fashion/style, sports, geography, cooking, and biology). In my fashion, strength in our modern society is using your wits and intelligence to do as much work for us as is needed to complete a certain task or goal. It’s interesting because while watching the Olympics I realized that there is a lot of hand-eye coordination that athletes must be in tune with in order to be successful. One has to be astutely aware of their own motions, and the motions of others, in the interest of beating one’s opponent, an opponent who has worked just as hard as you and wants that medal just as much as you. As late psychologist, Howard Gardner postulated, that of the nine types of intelligence we humans are to possess, this high type of intelligence would fall under bodily-kinesthetic intelligence [source]. People can be intelligent at many things including: fashion, sports, television, electronics, nature, animals, poetry, rocks, etc. There are so many things to think about! We weren't given this mental capacity of all the species on the planet to sit around not using our brains to explore all that is here in life to explore, physically through our environment, as well as interpersonally, for the mind is the single most unexplored continent on this planet! We are all capable of understanding life; it just depends on how much you make your brain work to pay attention to all the details of life. By learning from our experiences, which according to Wilde’s philosphy, is simply “the name we give our mistakes”, we are able to find our strengths and talents to use them to fuel our thinking, so we can know how to conquer forces of life that oppose us.



Mine and Dwight’s sartorial choices come from the energy of imagination, deliberation, and invention, which fall into a natural rhythm all our own, maintained by innate discipline and a keen sense of pleasure.

Considering the back-to-school season is right around the corner, I figured this would be an appropriate time to emphasize making the right choices (sartorially, and in our every day decision making), being more conscious of the things that happen in one’s environment, continually searching out knowledge, and being able to know how to use your gut when choosing your next steps in life. Just the same as when you have that overwhelming feeling of, “This was made for me,” when selecting that perfect garment in the store, is the same feeling one should have when shopping for the right decisions to make one’s life fulfilling, in all instances of one’s life. As is said in this past July’s Vogue cover profile of Emma Stone who has become an arbiter of a bit of wisdom she took from co-star, Ryan Gosling, who says, "Picking roles is like listening to songs on the radio: "There can be a lot of really great songs in a row, but then one comes on that just makes you want to dance." If you are not doing something in your life that's not making you want to dance, then maybe it’s time for you to reconsider your steps.