Wilde and paradoxes

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Some other examples:

• I can resist anything except temptation.
• I have the simplest tastes.  I am always satisfied with the best.
• Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
• The critic has to educate the public. The artist has to educate the critic.
• There are two ways of disliking poetry.  One is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope.
• There are two ways of disliking art. One is to dislike it.  The other is to like it rationally.
• In this world there are only two tragedies.  One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
• Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
• Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
• I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.
• We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
• What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Reflecting on his style of wit, Wilde also said, “The way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test Reality we must see it on the tightrope. When the Verities become acrobats, we can judge them.” The playful witticisms quoted above are paradoxes in the truest and best sense: they work against commonly received opinion (para = beyond, contrary to + doxa = opinion), and their contradictions, which may seem merely flippant when first heard, make cogent sense when examined closely. It seems doubtful that Mulligan has much appreciation for this truth-telling function of Wildean paradoxes. But Stephen, whose Shakespeare talk is replete with verbal play, contrary views, and self-contradiction, is driving at a serious purpose.