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Daily Inspiration Quote by Oscar Wilde

"Why was I born with such contemporaries?"

About this Quote

Wilde’s complaint lands like a champagne toast delivered as an insult: light, sparkling, and meant to sting. “Why was I born with such contemporaries?” performs aristocratic weariness while smuggling in a sharper accusation-that the age around him is aesthetically and morally provincial. The line isn’t simply elitism; it’s a strategy. Wilde frames himself as out of joint with his own moment, not because he’s nostalgic for the past, but because he’s policing the terms of modernity: if his contemporaries can’t keep up, that’s their failure, and also their indictment.

The wording does two tricks at once. “Born with” makes the problem sound biological, like bad genetics or a congenital condition, turning social frustration into fate. It’s also wickedly passive-aggressive: he doesn’t attack any person directly, he questions the universe’s casting choices. That cosmological scale is part of the humor-and part of the ego. Wilde’s persona thrives on the idea that genius is a kind of misplacement, a rare orchid forced to bloom in a cheap greenhouse.

Context matters because Wilde is writing and speaking inside late-Victorian respectability, where art is expected to behave and desire must wear a mask. As a dramatist and public wit, he lived by audience approval while distrusting audience taste; later, as scandal closed in, “contemporaries” also meant juries, tabloids, moralists. The line becomes a compact manifesto: if society insists on judging him, he’ll return the favor, with better sentences.

Quote Details

TopicWitty One-Liners
Source
Later attribution: Oscar Wilde and his Wildest Quotes (Sreechinth C) modern compilationID: _fcEEAAAQBAJ
Text match: 95.00%   Provider: Google Books
Evidence:
... Why was I born with such contemporaries ? " " There is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty . ” " How sad it is ! " murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait . " How sad it is ! I shall grow old , and ...
Other candidates (1)
The Dark Lady of the Sonnets (Oscar Wilde, 1910)50.0%
Why was I born with such contemporaries? Why is Shakespear made ridiculous by such a posterity? (Preface (no page num...
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Wilde, Oscar. (2026, February 11). Why was I born with such contemporaries? FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/why-was-i-born-with-such-contemporaries-26983/

Chicago Style
Wilde, Oscar. "Why was I born with such contemporaries?" FixQuotes. February 11, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/why-was-i-born-with-such-contemporaries-26983/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Why was I born with such contemporaries?" FixQuotes, 11 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/why-was-i-born-with-such-contemporaries-26983/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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Why was I born with such contemporaries - Oscar Wilde
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About the Author

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde (October 16, 1854 - November 30, 1900) was a Dramatist from Ireland.

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