I can resist everything except temptation.

The exchange comes early in Act I of Lady Windermere’s Fan. On her birthday, Lady Windermere is arranging flowers for her ball that evening, while Lord Darlington, a society dandy, pays her compliments and tests her principles: should women who have committed “what the world calls a fault” be forgiven? Never, she replies, and she wants the same hard rules for men. “Ah, what a fascinating Puritan you are,” he says. She answers that the adjective was unnecessary; he pleads, “I couldn’t help it,” and adds this line. “You have the modern affectation of weakness,” she retorts. “It’s only an affectation,” he replies, just before the Duchess of Berwick is announced.

The play opened in London in February 1892 and was Wilde’s first great success in the theatre. Its plot turns on the very question Darlington raises: the forgiveness owed to a woman with a past. The line is often misquoted with “anything” in place of “everything”.

Lady Windermere's Fan, Act I (Lord Darlington), 1892

Checked word for word in the work itself.

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