Daily Inspiration Quote by Oscar Wilde

A three-part joke dressed as sociology, Wilde’s line works because it flatters its own cruelty. He opens with a tidy symmetry - men “tired,” women “curious” - then snaps it shut with the shared punchline: disappointment. The rhythm is surgical: two motives that sound plausible, even complimentary in their gendered way, are exposed as flimsy alibis for a decision no one really understands until it’s too late.

The intent is less to describe marriage than to puncture the Victorian ideal of it. “Tired” hints at men seeking marriage as a form of social rest: an exit ramp from bachelor chaos into domestic management, status, and routine. “Curious” casts women as intellectual and emotional explorers, but it’s barbed; curiosity is treated as naivete, the desire to open a door society has told you contains the whole plot of adulthood. Wilde makes both motives feel small, almost accidental, compared to the institution’s weight.

The subtext is where Wilde is most himself: he’s suspicious of respectable narratives because he knows how often they’re cover stories. Victorian marriage sold itself as moral completion; Wilde, who lived under a regime that criminalized his sexuality and prized public virtue over private truth, treats that completion as a con. The final clause - “both are disappointed” - is egalitarian in the bleakest way. It implies the problem isn’t men or women; it’s the fantasy that marriage will resolve boredom, uncertainty, or desire. Wilde’s wit lands because it’s not just cynical. It’s diagnostic: people marry for reasons that sound like motives, but behave like symptoms.