“Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors …” Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas For Oscar Wilde, a cynic was someone who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. Many of us are cynical now. Perhaps, to paraphrase Wilde,…

According to Mark Twain, when he was 16 his father knew nothing, but by the time he was 21, it was amazing how much he had learnt. Twain’s father may have been ultimately fortunate. A gloomier perspective on children’s attitudes to their parents was offered by Oscar Wilde: children start off loving their parents; then…