Living above your means

[Xenocrates]

Evaluate this statement:

"Anyone who lives within their means is suffering from a lack of imagination."

- Oscar Wilde

Is Oscar wack or is there some hidden truth behind it? What do you guys think?

[nuhsenutten]

him confused.....living by ur means can b done but for how long ?

he's confused

[Madhacker]

Serious do you really have ppl who live within their means, We all have wants we all situation where something just happen doesnt that force us to step out of our means?

[easyskanka]

I think I'm right in saying that Oscar Wilde was an 'eccentric fellow.' Or in layman terms; A spoil di man spoil.

It brings to mind the parable of the 'brother' who asked his father for his share of his inheritence,then went off to live the high life in a wreckless manner,squandering everything over a much shorter period than if he had lived more within his means.

No I don't think he's right,he's just attempting to either raise controversy,or wants to appear wise among his sycophantic followers.

[Bahama Mama]

Evaluate this statement:

"Anyone who lives within their means is suffering from a lack of imagination."

- Oscar Wilde

Is Oscar wack or is there some hidden truth behind it? What do you guys think?


I guess Oscar wouldnt have had the privelege of hearing the 'Crack is Wack' message...lol.

I think Mr. Wilde was trying to say that one will never experience that success which is beyond ones expectation, if one doesnt expand ones mental horizons.

However, his quote seems to dump on people who conduct their lifestyles within their financial capabilities, suggesting that these people lack any mental initiative to do better. That is not necessarily the case. Some people are simpy content and happy with their lot in life, which doesnt necesarily have to be poverty.

As well his proposed hidden truth cant be applied to the masses of people who live within their means (alot of cases abject poverty) simply through no control or doing of their own. In fact their environment which can be war torn, disease ridden, conflict ridden, (many countries in Africa) affords them little opportunity to exceed their present situation. In fact these individual are too concerned with living and surviving, to imagine.


I suspect Mr. Wilde was slightly obliviuos to the world around him.

[Xenocrates]

Wow, BM, I can literally smell the College grade education steaming off that response. :D Awesome stuff. That's how I love my women - black and brilliant :icon_mrgr

Alas, I think you're quite right. There's nowhere in what he said that suggests that he was referring to the financially inept. I am also tempted to believe that you're also right about it referring to those who are just content with mediocrity, living hand to mouth. It's amazing how insecurity can colour our interpretation of a single quote. Amazing isn't it?


No I don't think he's right,he's just attempting to either raise controversy,or wants to appear wise among his sycophantic followers.

- After reading a biography of Oscar Wilde, I also believe that you're right as well. It sounded more like crock than wisdom when I first read his quote, although he has a natural talent for spewing out cynical, humorous crock. Did you know that he was a homosexual? Fascinating...

Seems like quite a number of the most brilliant/greatest men in history were gay... I don't get it. :eusa_thin

[Jae]

I guess Oscar wouldnt have had the privelege of hearing the 'Crack is Wack' message...lol.

I think Mr. Wilde was trying to say that one will never experience that success which is beyond ones expectation, if one doesnt expand ones mental horizons.

However, his quote seems to dump on people who conduct their lifestyles within their financial capabilities, suggesting that these people lack any mental initiative to do better. That is not necessarily the case. Some people are simpy content and happy with their lot in life, which doesnt necesarily have to be poverty.

As well his proposed hidden truth cant be applied to the masses of people who live within their means (alot of cases abject poverty) simply through no control or doing of their own. In fact their environment which can be war torn, disease ridden, conflict ridden, (many countries in Africa) affords them little opportunity to exceed their present situation. In fact these individual are too concerned with living and surviving, to imagine.


I suspect Mr. Wilde was slightly obliviuos to the world around him.
:icon_arro :icon_idea BM:icon_idea What she said

[Xenocrates]

:icon_arro :icon_idea BM:icon_idea What she said

- I concur. I just love that woman. :icon_mrgr

[nester-san]

Champagne Life on Kool-Aid budget, aahh..the best way to live.

I think that was what he was trying to say, the joy of never being able to balance your income and expediture.
Vacations in Hawaii, when you have two car notes... "I'll put somethin' on it when I get back"

It can be thrill, if you look at it from the perspective of an Oscar, who cared not a whit for stuff like actual bank figures.
Live like a hedonist, damn the consequences!!

I have an obessive need to know my financial status at all times, so I can fully understand the FREEDOM in living so irresonsibly. :icon_lol:

[Izemi-Clem]

Hail

I believe BH's interpretation of Oscar Wilde's qoute (as profound as it is) may have nothing to do with the playwright himself, the evidence being how he lived his life. Admittedly I'm biased here

Did he make this statement to place himself above reproach and inspection by his seemly repressive Victorian peers ? Or was it taken from one of his lectures ? One of his many plays ? Or was it taken from his homoerotic novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray"? Or was it a statement he made at one of his many trials ?

As with all statements, the context in which, or the circumstances under which they were made (or written) is important in determining what the author's true meaning, interpretation or analogy was meant to be.
And of course for whom, or what occasion it was meant for.

What is really import with these seemingly profound or "foolish" statements is not what the originator implied but rather how applicable it is to you and your own circumstances.
I'm saying it is how you take such words and make them your own, making them applicable to your own philosophy and point of view.

BH's interpretation maybe her own words, her own philosophy, not very far from my own mind you :)
It would be interesting to see what other spin, the rest of us may make of it.

Izemi-Clem

[BlackCryptoKnight]

Evaluate this statement:

"Anyone who lives within their means is suffering from a lack of imagination."

- Oscar Wilde

Is Oscar wack or is there some hidden truth behind it? What do you guys think?

Taking this statement at face value, I believe it is not a truthful statement.

A person who lives within their means ie. does not spend what they cannot afford, does not take on what they are able to handle etc., may have quite a vivid and active imagination. They may imagine the miserable life which awaits them if they overextend their resources and capabilities and are unable to meet their obligations and cannot adequately support themselves as a result.

Some may read his statement and interpret "imagination" to mean "ambition" but the two words do not mean the same thing.

[nester-san]

I reiterate my comments

[Malloc-X]

Seems like quite a number of the most brilliant/greatest men in history were gay... I don't get it. :eusa_thin

u keep sayin that u love women and now u say that most brilliant men in history are gay, u consider urself brilliant, so my question is r u tryin to come out of the closet

[Xenocrates]

Some may read his statement and interpret "imagination" to mean "ambition" but the two words do not mean the same thing.

- I agree. If Oscar didn't mean what he said, in exactly the way he said it, then that alone is reason to suggest he must've been drunk on his own ignorance. He has been known to make foolish, yet funny, cynical quips, just for the heck of it, since he's got such a sharpe tongue anyway. Remember that court case where he was being tried for homosexuality?

With that said, I find it difficult to understand how some people, mostly impoverished young people, take it upon themselves to live like royalty on a pauper's budget. I speak with reference to some blokes I've read on wheelsjamaica, who own 2.6 million dollar mods to 1995 cars, and they still live with their mothers. Mark you, they're eyeballs deep in debt, but they're driving a hot car.

Where's the sense in that? :rolleyes:


u keep sayin that u love women and now u say that most brilliant men in history are gay, u consider urself brilliant, so my question is r u tryin to come out of the closet

- You keep trying to suggest I'm gay, I wonder why. You looking company? I'm sorry Malloc, you're not my type. At the very least, I prefer my females with XX chromosone pair strands in their DNA. LMAO :rotflm:

[Bahama Mama]

Hail


As with all statements, the context in which, or the circumstances under which they were made (or written) is important in determining what the author's true meaning, interpretation or analogy was meant to be.
And of course for whom, or what occasion it was meant for.

What is really import with these seemingly profound or "foolish" statements is not what the originator implied but rather how applicable it is to you and your own circumstances.
I'm saying it is how you take such words and make them your own, making them applicable to your own philosophy and point of view.



Izemi-Clem

I actually had considered in what context Mr. Wilde scripted his quote. I must admit, I knew nothing of the life of this famous playwright, until I googled his bio yesterday. I read an archive of his quotes, he was definately a cynicist, and a bit of a humorist as well.


To extrapolate Victoria era thinking to that quote,would be a bit of challenge, so like you alluded to, individuals today will base it on our own own 21st century thinking.

I suspect even Mr. Wilde would have altered a few of his quotes in light of today's society if he were alive and in his literary prime today.

[g2cris]

Anyone who is able to live within their means is smart. No matter where they are in life.
Living within your means takes a good deal of effort.

[easyskanka]

Anyone who is able to live within their means is smart. No matter where they are in life.
Living within your means takes a good deal of effort.

And let's all say amen to that bro':eusa_clap

[rodalembs]

:D I was just did some research on Oscar Wilde This man is a nutcase. It seems the ear infection he died of was affecting him loon before his demise:D
He has some of the wierdest quotes. I highlighted a few



Men

"No man is rich enough to buy back his past."

"Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account."

"Men become old, but they never become good."
-- “Lady Windermere's Fan”

"I delight in men over seventy, they always offer one the devotion of a lifetime. "
-- “A Woman of No Importance”

"How many men there are in modern life who would like to see their past burning to white ashes before them!"
-- “An Ideal Husband”

"A man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralizes is invariably plain."-- “Lady Windermere's Fan”

"Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors and all the bachelors live like married men."
-- “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

"I don't like compliments, and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean."
-- “Lady Windermere's Fan”

Women

"One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything."-- “A Woman of No Importance”

"Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones."
-- “Lady Windermere's Fan”

"Men know life too early. Women know life too late. That is the difference between men and women."
-- “A Woman of No Importance”

"Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood."
-- “The Sphinx Without a Secret”

"It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing."
-- “Lady Windermere's Fan”

"I don't know that women are always rewarded for being charming. I think they are usually punished for it!"-- “An Ideal Husband”

"I don't think there is a woman in the world who would not be a little flattered if one made love to her. It is that which makes women so irresistibly adorable."
-- “A Woman of No Importance”

"My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth, I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important."
-- “A Woman of No Importance”

"Women give to men the very gold of their lives. But they invariably want it back in such very small change."
-- “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

"I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting."
-- “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

"I prefer women with a past. They're always so damned amusing to talk to."
-- “Lady Windermere's Fan”

People

"People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately."
-- Letter from Paris, dated May 1900

"The more one analyses people, the more all reasons for analysis disappear. Sooner of later one comes to that dreadful universal thing called human nature."
-- “The Decay of Lying”

"The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing."
-- “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”

"Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualification."
-- “Lord Arthur Savile's Crime”

"It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true."
-- “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

Life

"Life is much too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it."
-- “Vera, of The Nihilists”

"The Book of Life begins with a man and woman in a garden. It ends with Revelations."
-- “A Woman of No Importance”

"Life is never fair...And perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not."
-- “An Ideal Husband”

"You must not find symbols in everything you see. It makes life impossible."
-- “Salome”

"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell."
-- “The Duchess of Padua”

"The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast."
-- “Lord Arthur Savile's Crime”

Love

"Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman - or the want of it in the man."
-- “A Woman of No Importance”

"One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry."
-- “A Woman of No Importance”

"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance."
-- “An Ideal Husband”

"A kiss may ruin a human life."
-- “A Woman of No Importance”

"A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her."
-- “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

"Young men want to be faithful and are not; old men want to be faithless and cannot."
-- “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

"Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect - simply a confession of failures."
-- “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

[Juliet]

Evaluate this statement:

"Anyone who lives within their means is suffering from a lack of imagination."

- Oscar Wilde

Is Oscar wack or is there some hidden truth behind it? What do you guys think?

I think I would have to agree with him. To be living within my means would suggest that I have become comfortable with my situation and give little thought to rising above it. This statement speaks to taking risks in life; having a dream; and making that dream a reality with everything you've got. To live within my means suggests content with mediocrity. If you have an imagination , then living within your means is just not an option. Any one human being has so much potential that anything can happen.

[Jae]

Oscar wasn't whack in fact all his quotes make sense to me!!! He's pretty smart, he just looks at things diferently and calls 'em how he sees 'em.