Be yourself; everyone else is already taken may be the most-shared Oscar Wilde line on the internet, and it does not appear in his published works. We searched twenty-six Wilde books on Project Gutenberg, about a million words, and the phrase “already taken” is not in any of them. The surprise is that Wilde really did write the words “Be yourself”, and the two places he put them are far more interesting than the poster.
The claim: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” by Wilde
The line is a perfect fit for a sticker: a piece of advice, then a joke that undercuts it. That is why it gets credited to Wilde, whose method was exactly that kind of reversal. But the joke is a modern one. It turns identity into a vacancy, like a seat or a username, and Wilde’s own epigrams almost never work that way. His reversals are about society, sin, marriage and art.
The attribution almost never names a play, a book or a letter. A line from Wilde that really is his usually comes with “from An Ideal Husband” or “from Dorian Gray” attached, because people like to show where they found it.
What we searched
We downloaded these Project Gutenberg texts, lower-cased them, stripped punctuation and Gutenberg’s italic markers, and searched each for already taken, is already taken, everyone else is, everybody else is, be yourself and be thyself:
- Novel and stories: The Picture of Dorian Gray (#174), Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories (#773), The Canterville Ghost (#14522), The Happy Prince and Other Tales (#902), A House of Pomegranates (#873)
- Plays: Lady Windermere’s Fan (#790), A Woman of No Importance (#854), An Ideal Husband (#885), The Importance of Being Earnest (#844), Salomé (#42704), Vera (#26494), The Duchess of Padua (#875), A Florentine Tragedy (#1308)
- Essays and prose: Intentions (#887), The Soul of Man under Socialism (#1017), Miscellaneous Aphorisms; The Soul of Man (#33979), Essays and Lectures (#774), Reviews (#14240), A Critic in Pall Mall (#30191), Miscellanies (#14062), Shorter Prose Pieces (#2061), Selected Prose (#1338), Impressions of America (#41806)
- Prison writing and poems: De Profundis (#921), The Ballad of Reading Gaol (#301), Poems (#1057)
“Already taken”, “is already taken”, “everyone else is” and “everybody else is” returned zero matches in all twenty-six. “Be yourself” returned exactly two passages, and “be thyself” one. Those are the real Wilde, and here they are.
“Be yourself!” in Lady Windermere’s Fan
The first is in the second act of Lady Windermere’s Fan (published 1893). It is the night of Lady Windermere’s birthday dance. She believes her husband is keeping another woman, and Lord Darlington, who has been courting her, makes his move:
You said once you would make no compromise with things. Make none now. Be brave! Be yourself!
Lord Darlington, Lady Windermere’s Fan, second act
He wants her to leave her husband that night and go away with him. “Be yourself” here is a seducer’s argument, and Wilde gives the heroine the better reply:
I am afraid of being myself. Let me think! Let me wait! My husband may return to me.
Lady Windermere, Lady Windermere’s Fan, second act
So the one time a Wilde character says the words on the poster, the audience is meant to distrust him. The play is far more skeptical of the slogan than the people who print it.
“Be thyself” in The Soul of Man under Socialism
The second passage is where Wilde says it in his own voice, and means it. The Soul of Man under Socialism first ran in the Fortnightly Review in February 1891, according to the bibliography in Robert Ross’s edition of Wilde’s Miscellanies. It is an essay arguing that the point of a just society is to let individuals develop. Wilde enlists Christ as the great individualist:
‘Know thyself’ was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, ‘Be thyself’ shall be written. And the message of Christ to man was simply ‘Be thyself.’ That is the secret of Christ.
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Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891)
A page later he paraphrases what Jesus meant, and the poster’s first two words appear in sequence:
He said to man, ‘You have a wonderful personality. Develop it. Be yourself. Don’t imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things.
Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891)
This is the real thing, and it is not a quip at all. It is an argument about property: you cannot become yourself while you are busy owning things. It is also earnest in a way people do not expect from Wilde, and that is precisely why the joke version spread instead.
“Most people are other people”
The closest Wilde ever came to the punchline is in De Profundis, the long letter written from his cell (“I have lain in prison for nearly two years,” it says early on) and published in 1905. He is again writing about Christ and the soul:
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Oscar Wilde, De Profundis (1905)
Here is the idea the sticker reaches for, that most people are copies, but with a darker edge. Wilde is not telling you to be original because the originals are spoken for. He is saying that most people never become anyone, and he is writing it from a cell. “Their passions a quotation” is a fine line to keep in mind while reading a quote attributed to him.
In The Picture of Dorian Gray Lord Henry gives a cynical version over dinner in chapter VI: To be good is to be in harmony with one’s self
, he says, and Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others.
And in An Ideal Husband Lord Goring closes the subject entirely: To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance
.
Where the line came from
We could not establish its origin and have no dated printed source to offer. A phrase search of the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America historic newspapers for “everyone else is already taken” returned no matches. What we can say is that it does not appear in the twenty-six Wilde texts listed above. Our search does not cover his private correspondence.
For the Wilde lines that check out, see our Oscar Wilde quotes and the Dorian Gray quotes, each copied from the text with its chapter. For more misattributions, see our checks on Mark Twain’s “two most important days” and Kahlil Gibran’s “half a life”.
The check at a glance
| Claim | Searched | Found? | What Wilde wrote instead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Be yourself; everyone else is already taken | 26 Gutenberg texts (#174 to #42704, listed above) | No | “Most people are other people.” (De Profundis) |
| “already taken” / “everyone else is” | Same 26 texts | No | “Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others.” (Dorian Gray, ch. VI) |
| “Be yourself” as Wilde’s advice | Same 26 texts | Yes, twice | “Be brave! Be yourself!” (Lord Darlington, Lady Windermere’s Fan, act II); “Develop it. Be yourself.” (The Soul of Man) |
| “Be thyself” | The Soul of Man under Socialism (#1017) | Yes | “Over the portal of the new world, ‘Be thyself’ shall be written.” |
The only character in Wilde’s plays who says “Be yourself!” is Lord Darlington, and he says it to talk a married woman into leaving her husband that night.
Sources
- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan, Project Gutenberg #790
- Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism (1909 Humphreys edition), Project Gutenberg #1017
- Oscar Wilde, De Profundis (1913 Methuen edition), Project Gutenberg #921
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Project Gutenberg #174
- Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband, Project Gutenberg #885
- Oscar Wilde, Miscellanies, ed. Robert Ross, with bibliography, Project Gutenberg #14062
- Project Gutenberg catalogue search for “Oscar Wilde”: gutenberg.org
- Library of Congress, Chronicling America