Today is the 157th Birthday of Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde.

I encourage everyone to take a moment to respect the life of Oscar Wilde.

In Oscar’s life, he wore many masks. He was a father, he was a husband, he was a secret lover, and yes, he was a dandy, he was a celebrity of his time, he was a scandal. But beneath all these masks, lies a true artist. By the end of his life, he had lost everything. When he died, he died with nothing but his art. I do not believe he would have wanted to be remembered as a rebel, as a man who lived only for pleasure, or as someone who went to prison for love (for his love and relationship with art was a thousand times greater than any other relationship in his life). I’m certain he would not have wanted his grave to be defaced with lipstick stains and graffiti of misspelled quotes. He deserves more respect than that. Do not kiss his grave, kneel before the remains of a profound artist.

“You knew what my Art was to me, the great primal note by which I had revealed, first myself to myself, and then myself to the world; the real passion of my life; the love to which all other loves were as marsh-water to red wine, or the glow-worm of the marsh to the magic mirror of the moon.” -Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

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