The Soul of Man Under Socialism

“It's much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. The emotions of a man are stirred more quickly than man's intelligence.”

“A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.”

“To call an artist morbid because he deals with morbidity as his subject-matter is as silly as if one called Shakespeare mad because he wrote King Lear”

“At present, machinery competes against man. Under proper conditions machinery will serve man. On mechanical slavery, the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.”

Where was this book all this time! I happened to stumble across this rather precious gem in my vast e-library of Wilde's works. Wilde isn't known to write political books but this one is different.
Wilde explores the idea of how and ideal government should be like. As usual, the book is filled with romantic ideas and thoughts on art, humanity, individualism, slavery. The witty aphorisms and the classic cynicism of Wilde, make it a delightful read. Wilde's every book has that ability to change your perception about things and this one's no exception. The book is timeless and way ahead of its time as it also discusses the possibility of machines replacing humans for degrading jobs. And we're currently living in times of artificial intelligence! To sum up this book in a single sentence, if Hitler or Stalin would have been influenced by this book, maybe, just maybe, the world would have been a better place! This is the book everyone needs to read! This book is indeed Wilde's underrated masterpiece! A must-read!