The exact words
“We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.”Oscar Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
✓ VerifiedFound in a primary source: the original book, speech transcript, letter or recording.
What people get wrong
Common reading
Wilde dismissing art as worthless.
Wilde dismissing art as worthless.
Closer to the original
Wilde, an artist to his fingertips, meant the opposite. He was defending art against critics who judged a novel by whether it taught a moral lesson. “Useless” is praise here. Art doesn't need to be useful to matter.
Wilde, an artist to his fingertips, meant the opposite. He was defending art against critics who judged a novel by whether it taught a moral lesson. “Useless” is praise here. Art doesn't need to be useful to matter.
Timeline
- 1890The Picture of Dorian Gray appears in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Critics attack it as immoral.
- March 1891Wilde answers with a list of short, provocative sayings about art, first printed in the Fortnightly Review and then as the preface to the expanded book edition. It ends with “All art is quite useless.”
- 1891A young reader, Bernulf Clegg, writes to Wilde asking what the line means. Wilde replies that art is useless in the way a flower is useless: it exists to create a mood, not to make people act.
Use it in a speech
Wilde closed his defense of Dorian Gray with a deliberate provocation, “All art is quite useless,” meaning that art should be judged by its beauty, not by the lessons it teaches.
~9 secondsto say aloud
Pausenone needed in writing
Best spotthesis or closing line
Questions people ask
Where does “All art is quite useless” come from?
It is the last line of Oscar Wilde's preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1891.
Did Wilde think art was worthless?
No. He meant that art has no practical purpose and should not be judged by moral usefulness, which he saw as a strength.
Cite this quote
These cite the original source directly, so you can use them in an essay or paper. Always check your teacher's required style.
MLAWilde, Oscar. Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray. 1891. Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/174.
APAWilde, O. (1891). Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/174
CHICAGOOscar Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891.
IN TEXT (APA)(Wilde, 1891)