The exact words
A Wilde line Wilde never wrote
Few quotes are shared more often, and few sound more like Oscar Wilde. It has his trademark twist, a sincere piece of advice turned into a joke in the second half. That is exactly why it stuck to him. But the sentence is not found anywhere in his plays, novels, poems, essays or letters, and researchers who have looked for it have come up empty.
The earliest known appearance of the exact wording is an anonymous post in an internet discussion group in December 1999, almost a hundred years after Wilde died in 1900. Within months a personal website credited it to a man named Gilbert Perreira, and in September 2000 several American newspapers printed a shorter version, “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken,” with no name at all. Wilde’s name was attached a few years later, as the line spread on early social media.
What Wilde really thought about being yourself
The irony is that the real Wilde was suspicious of plain sincerity. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the cynical Lord Henry says that “being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.” Wilde wrote elsewhere that if you give a man a mask, he will tell you the truth. His point was that people reveal themselves through the roles they play.
The closest genuine Wilde line comes from De Profundis, the long letter he wrote in prison: “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” It makes a similar point about living a borrowed life, but with real sadness rather than a wink.
How to use it
The modern line is still good advice and a nice light moment in a speech. Just avoid putting Wilde’s name on it in anything formal. “As the saying goes” works, and if you want real Wilde, “Most people are other people” is both genuine and more striking.
What people get wrong
One of Oscar Wilde's famous epigrams.
An anonymous line first found online in 1999. Wilde wrote about masks and identity, but in a darker and more playful way.
Timeline
- 1890In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Henry says, “Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.”
- 1900Oscar Wilde dies in Paris.
- 1905De Profundis is published, with the line “Most people are other people.”
- 1999The exact wording appears anonymously in an internet discussion group.
- 2000Websites credit the line to a man named Gilbert Perreira; newspapers print it without any name.
- 2000sThe line spreads on social media with Wilde's name attached.
Use it in a speech
Questions people ask
Did Oscar Wilde say “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken”?
There is no evidence that he did. The line does not appear in his plays, novels, essays, poems or letters, and the earliest known exact match is from 1999.
Who wrote it, then?
Nobody knows. It appeared anonymously in an online discussion in 1999, and some websites soon credited a Gilbert Perreira, but its true author is unknown.
What did Wilde actually say about being yourself?
In De Profundis he wrote, “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” In Dorian Gray, Lord Henry calls being natural “simply a pose.”
Cite this quote
Don't cite this line as Oscar Wilde's words. There is no reliable source showing they said it. If you need to mention it, say it is “often attributed to Oscar Wilde” and, if you want a reference, cite this page: