Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Genuine
Yes. In De Profundis (1905), De Profundis.
Found word for word by program in the full text.
The wording people share differs slightly from the text; the words in the text are underlined below.
- Work
- De Profundis
- Where
- De Profundis
- Found at
- Paragraph 62 of the text
Researched by AI; checked by program against the full text on 31 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check
On the page
[…] In many ways I had been its enemy, but I found it waiting for me as a friend. When one comes in contact with the soul it makes one simple as a child, as Christ said one should be.
It is tragic how few people ever ‘possess their souls’ before they die. ‘Nothing is more rare in any man,’ says Emerson, ‘than an act of his own.’ It is quite true. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. Christ was not merely the supreme individualist, but he was the first individualist in history. People have tried to make him out an ordinary philanthropist, or ranked him as an altruist with the scientific and sentimental. […]
To live for others as a definite self-conscious aim was not his creed. It was not the basis of his creed. […]
But while Christ did not say to men, ‘Live for others,’ he pointed out that there was no difference at all between the lives of others and one’s own life. By this means he gave to man an extended, a Titan personality. […]
The scene
De Profundis is the long letter Wilde wrote to Lord Alfred Douglas from Reading Gaol in the first months of 1897; Robert Ross published the parts that do not concern Douglas in 1905, as a meditation. In this part Wilde writes of how, having lost everything, even his children, he came to accept everything and found his soul. He turns to Christ as the supreme individualist, who looks for the soul in everyone, and then to this lament: hardly anyone becomes himself. He goes on to say that Christ was the first individualist in history.
What it means
Most people never live as themselves: what they think, how they live and even what they feel are borrowed from others. To be oneself is rare, and is what Wilde, in prison, now values most.
Often misread
Often quoted as a dandy’s sneer at the herd. In the letter it is said in his own name, in grief and humility, and it leads not to contempt but to Christ, whom Wilde sees as the model of a person who is fully himself.
Also shared as
- ShortenedMost people are other people. The four-word sentence on its own, the usual form in quote collections.
Before and after
Topics
Related quotes
- Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. (not found)
- Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want. Naval Ravikant
- Imitation is suicide. Ralph Waldo Emerson
- If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Henry David Thoreau
Sources
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