Oscar Wilde: ‘Keep Love in Your Heart’

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900) was an Irish writer best known for his masterpiece play The Importance of Being Earnest, as well as the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde is also famous for the persecution he faced from his contemporaries with regard to his homosexuality. After a public feud in 1895 with the Marquess of Queensberry led to scandalous revelations, Wilde was convicted of gross indecency and imprisoned for two years. Upon his release, Wilde fled to France where he died of meningitis at the young age of 46.

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.”

Source: Quoted by Alvin Redman in The Epigrams of Oscar Wilde (1952).