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Oscar Wilde
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  3. /Free criticism is as unknown as free...

Wilde, verified

"Free criticism is as unknown as free trade."

The Rise of Historical Criticism, Part I (essay, 1879)
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  • "Herodotus wrote to illustrate the wonderful ways of Providence and the nemesis that falls on sin, and his work is a good example of the truth that nothing can dispense with criticism so much as a moral aim."
  • "Herodotus would have believed in Scipio's dream. Thucydides would have ignored it entirely. Polybius explains it."
  • "Polybius was one of those many men who are born too late to be original."
  • "Greek philosophy began and ended in scepticism: the first and the last word of Greek history was Faith."
  • "The only spirit which is entirely removed from us is the mediƦval; the Greek spirit is essentially modern."
  • "It is so hard to use facts, so easy to accumulate them."
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"No, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
Lord Darlington, Lady Windermere's Fan, Act III

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Oscar Wilde's works are in the public domain. Texts from Standard Ebooks, released under CC0.

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