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Description edit
While jailed for homosexual offenses, Wilde wrote this long, bitter letter of recrimination to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. It offers fascinating insights into Wilde’s life in prison and the background and psychology of a notorious affair, but its eloquence, passion and literary excellence... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Quotes edit
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“If you go complaining to your mother, as you did with reference to the scorn of you I displayed in my letter to Robbie, so that she may flatter and soothe you back into self-complacency or conceit, you will be completely lost. If you find one false excuse for yourself you will soon find a hundred and be just what you were before.”
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“…you loved me far better than you loved anyone else. But you, like myself, have had a terrible tragedy in your life, though one of an entirely opposite character to mine. Do you want to learn what it was? It was this, In you hate was always stronger than love. Your hatred of your father was of such stature that it entirely outstripped, overthrew, and overshadowed your love of me. There was no struggle between them at all, or but little: of such dimensions was your hatred and of such monstrous growth. You did not realize that there was no room for both passions in the same soul.”
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“Only what is fine and finely conceived, can feed love. But anything will feed hate.”
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“But while I see that there is nothing wrong in what one does, I see that there is something wrong in what one becomes.”
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“By the displacement of an atom the world may be shaken.”
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“It is always twilight in one's cell, as it is always twilight in one's heart.”
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“Those who have much are often greedy; those who have little always share.”
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“Terrible as was what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still”
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“I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute humility.”
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“He (Christ) saw that love was the first secret of the world for which the wise men had been looking, and that it was only through love that one could approach either the heart of the leper or the feet of God.”
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“But while to propose to be a better man is a piece of unscientific cant, to have become a deeper man is the privilege of those who have suffered.”
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“To those who are in prison tears are a part of every day's experience. A day in prison on which one does not weep is a day on which one's heart is hard, not a day on which one's heart is happy.”
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“It were wiser still to say that behind sorrow there is always a soul. And to mock at a soul in pain is a dreadful thing.”
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I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character,
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‘Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the midnight hours Weeping and waiting for the morrow, - He knows you not, ye heavenly powers.’
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People whose desire is solely for self-realisation never know where they are going.
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The moment of repentance is the moment of initiation. More than that: it is the means by which one alters one’s past.
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To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development.
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One cannot acquire it, except by surrendering everything that one has.
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Setting & Locations edit
Reading, Berkshire, England
- Reading Gaol: HM Prison Reading, formerly known as Reading Gaol, is Young Offenders Institution for male prisoners. The prison is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service.
- Goethe
First Sentence edit
MY DEAR ROBBIE,-I want you to have a letter written at once to Mr. - the solicitor, stating that as my wife has promised to settle a third on me, in the case of her predeceasing me, I do not wish any opposition to be made to her purchasing my life interest.
Series & Lists edit
Authors & Contributors edit
- Oscar Wilde (Author)
First Edition edit
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Publication Date: 1905
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Publisher: Add the publisher.
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Publication Date: 1905
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Classification edit
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- Dewey: 828.803
Subjects edit
- Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › British › Classics › Wilde, Oscar
- Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( W ) › Wilde, Oscar
- Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
- Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
- Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
- Books › Literature & Fiction › Essays
- Books › Biographies & Memoirs
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Links to Supplemental Material edit
- Project Gutenberg: De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: Full text available online and in most major electronic book formats.
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