OSCAR WILDE · LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN

“I can resist everything except temptation.”

A perfect little escape hatch of a sentence. The exception swallows the rule, and the speaker knows it.

Author

Oscar Wilde

Work

Lady Windermere’s Fan

Speaker

Lord Darlington

Source

Read the full play at Project Gutenberg

Who actually says it?

Lord Darlington says the line in conversation with Lady Windermere. She has objected to his description of her as a “fascinating Puritan”. His reply turns the objection into another opportunity to be charming.

Attributing the sentence to Wilde identifies its writer. Naming Lord Darlington identifies the speaker. Those are different pieces of information, and keeping both makes the quotation more useful.

Why the joke works

The sentence begins as a boast about self-control. Its final word takes the boast apart: temptation is precisely what resistance would need to overcome. The speaker gets the sound of moral strength without accepting its demands.

Read on its own, the line can seem like cheerful permission to indulge. In a conversation, it does another job too. It lets someone sidestep a criticism without ending the exchange. That makes it useful to read as dialogue, with a listener and an immediate purpose, rather than as a rule for life.

Share the wit. Keep the context.

A clear attribution is Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan — Lord Darlington. Search for “resist everything” in the linked text to find the exchange and read the lines before and after it.

The wording and speaker can be checked in the linked play. The discussion of the joke is our interpretation.