"There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it." -- Irish playwright, poet and renowned epigrammist Oscar Wilde, author of the novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and the plays "Lady Windermere's Fan", and "The Importance of Being Earnest." Born on this day in 1854, Wilde was a proponent of aestheticism, which places the beauty of art above any moral, political or teaching value of it ("art for art's sake"). Openly gay, his 1895 trial for gross indecency was a sensation in Victorian England and resulted in his imprisonment for two years. He died in 1900, just three years after his release.
