Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

Wilde likens “good resolutions” to writing checks against an empty bank account: a promise of payment without the funds to honor it. The point is not merely that resolutions often fail, but that they can be performative—an attractive gesture of intention that substitutes for the harder work of building real capacity, discipline, or desire to change. The metaphor also implies a social dimension: like a check, a resolution can be shown or announced to others as proof of seriousness, even when it is unsupported. In Wilde’s paradoxical style, moral aspiration is exposed as a kind of credit instrument—easy to issue, costly to redeem.