Daily Inspiration Quote by Oscar Wilde

Wilde turns moral instruction into a party trick, and the trick is the point. “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it” is built like a proverb, then immediately corrupted from within: the phrasing mimics Victorian self-help pieties while smuggling in the opposite ethic. That’s Wilde’s signature move as a dramatist of manners - he doesn’t argue against the era’s moral seriousness so much as expose how easily it can be made to perform.

The intent isn’t simply hedonism; it’s sabotage of the moral vocabulary that policed desire. By treating “temptation” as something you manage like clutter - get rid of it, clear it out - Wilde makes restraint sound like bad housekeeping. Yielding becomes a kind of efficiency, a sly jab at a culture that loved discipline as a public pose. The follow-up line, “I can resist everything but temptation,” tightens the screw: it’s a perfect epigram because it flatters the speaker’s willpower while confessing its failure. The joke is narcissistic and self-aware. He’s not claiming innocence; he’s claiming style.

Context matters. Wilde wrote in a world where “virtue” was social currency and hypocrisy a survival tactic, especially for someone whose life and desires would be punished when they became visible. The epigram’s sparkle hides a darker subtext: when society defines certain wants as inherently corrupt, the act of wanting becomes both guilt and thrill. Wilde makes that double bind laughable - and in doing so, indicts the system that created it.