We are all in the gutter, but some of us…
Quote
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
The story behind this quote
The line is spoken in Act III of Lady Windermere’s Fan, in Lord Darlington’s rooms, late at night. Lady Windermere, who has come ready to leave her husband for Darlington, is hiding behind a curtain while the men chat and drink. Cecil Graham mocks women for wanting men to be good; Darlington exclaims that they always find us bad, and Dumby jokes that all are good “except Tuppy”. Darlington answers with this line.
Dumby repeats it, amused: “you are very romantic to-night, Darlington.” Cecil concludes he must be in love, and Darlington admits that the woman he loves “is not free, or thinks she isn’t”, glancing at Lord Windermere. A little later her fan is found on the sofa, and only Mrs Erlynne’s sacrifice saves her from disgrace.
The play opened at the St James’s Theatre in London in February 1892, Wilde’s first great stage success. Amid its cynical epigrams, this one sounds sincere. It is carved on Maggi Hambling’s memorial to Wilde near Charing Cross.
The source
Lady Windermere’s Fan, Act III (Lord Darlington), 1892
Checked word for word in the work itself.
More quotes by Oscar Wilde
A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Author
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde was the wit of late Victorian London. His comedies Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest, and his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, are full of paradoxes still quoted today.
Quotes by Oscar Wilde