“Vulgar habit that is people have nowadays of asking one, after one has given them an idea, whether one is serious or not. Nothing is serious except passion. The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all”.
“All thought is immoral. Its very essence is destruction. If you think of something you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of”

Lord Illingworth to Lady Hunstanton in Oscar Wilde’s
A Woman of no Importance, 1893