Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Wilde provocatively states that all art is immoral.
In plain terms
All art breaks moral rules.
What can you take from it?
Art often challenges conventional morality.

Where it applies

  • censorship debates
  • artistic expression

Putting it to work

  • embrace provocative art
  • discuss ethical boundaries

Questions to consider

  • Is immorality inherent to art?
  • Can art be both moral and powerful?

Another view

Many works are created with moral intent.

More from Oscar Wilde

  1. Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a …

    Permalink to quote #17
  2. He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him.

    Permalink to quote #19
  3. Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.

    Permalink to quote #16

Related quotes

  1. Pythagoras said that this world was like a stage, Whereon many play their parts; the lookers-on, the sage Philosophers are, saith he, whose part is to learn Th…

    Richard EdwardesRichard Edwardes quote #2
  2. As my poor father used to say In 1863, Once people start on all this Art Goodbye, moralitee!

    A. P. HerbertA. P. Herbert quote #4
  3. Because the line between, Wrong and right, Is the width of a thread, From a spider's web. The piano keys are black and white, But they sound like a million col…

    Katie MeluaKatie Melua quote #27