Time & Perspective Quote by Richard Le Gallienne

Le Gallienne dresses a permissive idea in pastoral clothing, turning youthful misbehavior into agriculture: inevitable, seasonal, almost wholesome. “Wild oats” is an old euphemism for experimentation - sexual, social, boozy, reckless - but the phrase “will get sown” removes the moral panic. The verb choice makes the act less a fall from grace than a force of nature. He’s not arguing whether we stray; he’s arguing about timing, which is a subtler, more adult form of judgment.

That’s the subtext: desire and curiosity aren’t problems to be eradicated, they’re energies to be scheduled. The “art” here isn’t restraint for restraint’s sake, but a kind of self-management - sowing when the soil can take it, when consequences are survivable, when the self is flexible enough to learn rather than calcify. It’s a cheeky antidote to both Victorian rigidity and the romantic myth that chaos is automatically authentic.

Context matters. Le Gallienne came up in late-19th-century British literary circles where aestheticism, bohemia, and moral respectability were in constant negotiation. His line reads like advice from someone who’s watched reputations implode and also watched people miss their own lives by being too careful. The irony is gentle but real: even your rebellion can be done badly, even your freedom can be mistimed. The quote works because it reframes “sin” as logistics - and in doing so, it makes prudence sound less like obedience and more like craft.