Do you know witty Anglo-Irish playwright, poet and critic Oscar Wilde loved to use the phrase lack of imagination in his literary work?
Yeah, I know the title of this post is rather misleading.
Anyway, I stumbled on this, while I was searching for the source of this popular quote attributed to Oscar Wilde.
People who live within their means suffer from a lack of imagination
Or some wrote it as:
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
Most, if not all of them who attributed this quote to Oscar Wilde, but they do not cite their sources.
According to one quote website stated that this line “Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination“ is from “The Happy Prince” on page sixteen.
It is NOT found in this said book.
This is the free 1888 collection of stories for children book “The Happy Prince And Other Tales” by Oscar Wilde.
This quote is also NOT from Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance Of Being Earnest“, as someone suggested it in the question-and-answer website Quora.
The fact is this line is NOT by Oscar Wilde.
It is actually by an American actor Lionel Jay Stander!
It is uttered or rather boasted by the late American actor Lionel Jay Stander in an interview by Helen Lawrenson for Esquire Magazine.
This gravelly voice actor is best remembered as Max, the loyal butler, cook, and chauffeur to Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers on the 1979–1984 television series “Hart to Hart“.
The line is:
Nothing but the best. I’ve always lived beyond my means. Anyone who lives within his means suffers from a lack of imagination.
(Lionel Stander…that’s who By Helen Lawrenson, Esquire: The Magazine For Men, December 1967, P. 182) source
So, without any need of imagination, you can quote this:
“I’ve always lived beyond my means. Anyone who lives within his means suffers from a lack of imagination.’ – Lionel Jay Stander
Oscar Wilde And Lack Of Imagination
Now, let’s take a look at some of these quotations with the phrase “lack of imagination” used by the controversial literary figure in late Victorian England.
“The basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.” – Oscar Wilde
(Epigrams & Aphorisms By Oscar Wild, Boston: John W. Luce And Company, 1905, The Critic As Artist, P. 102) source
(The quote is also found here.)
Note: The original quote as published in the essay “The Critic As Artists” as:
“Its basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.” – Oscar Wilde
(Intention: The Decay Of Lying, Pen, Pencil And Poison, The Critic As Artist, The Truth Of Masks By Wilde, Oscar, New York: Brentano’s, 1905, The Critic as Artist, P. 128) source
(The quote is also found here and here.)
“…the people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.” – Oscar Wilde
(The Picture Of Dorian Gray By Oscar Wilde, edited And With An Introduction Notes By Isobel Murray, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, Ch. 4, P. 40) source
(The quote is also found here.)
“”The next time you are ill I will go away at once.” Ah! what coarseness of fibre does that reveal! What an entire lack of imagination! How callous, how common had the temperament by that time become!” – Oscar Wilde
(The Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, “Epistola : In carcere Et Vinculis, Volume 2, Edited By Ian Small, Oxford: Oxford University Press, P. 56) source
(The quote is also found in: The Letters Of Oscar Wilde Edited By Rupert Hart-Davis, New York: Harcourt, Brace & world, Inc, 1962, Part Six: Reading: 1895-1897, To Lord alfred Douglas, Ms B.M., H.M. Prison Reading, January-March, 1897, P. 439) source
(Another source of the quote is found here.)
“Your terrible lack of imagination, the one really fatal defect of your character, was entirely the result of the hate that lived in you.” – Oscar Wilde
(The Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, “Epistola : In carcere Et Vinculis, Volume 2, Edited By Ian Small, Oxford: Oxford University Press, P. 66) source
(The quote is also found in: The Letters Of Oscar Wilde Edited By Rupert Hart-Davis, New York: Harcourt, Brace & world, Inc, 1962, Part Six: Reading: 1895-1897, To Lord alfred Douglas, Ms B.M., H.M. Prison Reading, January-March, 1897, P. 445) source
“I am greatly hurt by his (Bosie) meanness and lack of imagination.” – Oscar Wilde
(The Letters Of Oscar Wilde Edited By Rupert Hart-Davis, New York: Harcourt, Brace & world, Inc, 1962, Part Seven: Berneval: 1897, To Robert Ross, Berneval-sur-Mer, Tuesday, 24 August, 1897, PP. 635) source
“It is the lack of imagination in the Anglo-Saxon race that makes the race so stupidly, harshly cruel.” – Oscar Wilde
(The Letters Of Oscar Wilde Edited By Rupert Hart-Davis, New York: Harcourt, Brace & world, Inc, 1962, Part Nine: Paris: 1897-1898, To Georgia Weldon, Hôtel d’Alsace, 31 May, 1898, P. 751) source
(The quote is also found here.)
“The crude commercialism of America, its materialising spirit, its indifference to the poetical side of things, and its lack of imagination and of high unattainable ideals, are entirely due to that country having adopted for its national hero a man who, according to his own confession, was incapable of telling a lie…” – Oscar Wilde
(Intention: The Decay Of Lying, Pen, Pencil And Poison, The critic As Artist, The Truth Of Masks By Wilde, Oscar, New York: Brentano’s, 1905, The Decay Of Lying, P. 27) source
Lacked of imagination, Oscar Wilde?
You got to be kidding. This Irish wit, poet, and dramatist is regarded as one of the greatest playwrights of the Victorian Era.
Oscar Wilde Imagination Quotes
Anyway, here are some Oscar Wilde quotations on imagination:
“Good people exasperate one’s reason; bad people stir one’s imagination.” – Oscar Wilde
(Art And Decoration, London: Muthuen & Co. Ltd, 1920, Sententiae, P. 201) source
“…imagination is the quality that enables one to see things and people in their real as in their ideal relations.” – Oscar Wilde
(The Letters Of Oscar Wilde Edited By Rupert Hart-Davis, New York: Harcourt, Brace & world, Inc, 1962, Part Six: Reading: 1895-1897, To Lord Alfred Douglas, Ms B.M., H.M. Prison Reading, January-March, 1897, PP. 508) source
“…anybody can have common sense, provided that they have no imagination.” – Oscar Wilde
(The Happy Prince And Other Tales By Oscar Wilde, New York: Brentano’s, 1920, The Remarkable Rocket, P. 116) source
“Love is fed by the imagination, by which we become wiser than we know, better than we feel, nobler than we are: by which we can see life as a whole, by which and by which alone we can understand others in their real and their ideal relation.” – Oscar Wilde
(De Profundis By Oscar Wilde, Arcturus Publishing, 2019) source