The quotes of Wilde have a sparkling side and a dark one. The other side of the witticism is sarcasm; the reverse of humor is bitterness, and beneath the paradox lies a challenge to common sense, while plausibility masks irony and dandyism covers subversion.

Wilde's aim, like that of most aphorists, remains human nature—often, of course, within the social and moral context of the Victorian era—but his arrows do not carry the relentless misanthropy of sharp observations from a La Rochefoucauld. At times, the grace of humor lightens them.