We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

The line is spoken by Lord Darlington in Oscar Wilde’s society comedy *Lady Windermere’s Fan* (first performed in London in 1892). In the play’s world of fashionable drawing rooms, Wilde uses epigrammatic wit to expose the moral posturing and hypocrisy of the upper classes. Darlington, a cynical aristocrat and would‑be suitor to Lady Windermere, offers the remark as part of his broader skepticism about conventional virtue and social judgment. The contrast between “gutter” and “stars” captures Wilde’s characteristic blend of worldly disillusionment and aesthetic aspiration, voiced through a character who is both perceptive and morally compromised.

The aphorism compresses a paradox: human beings share a common condition of imperfection, limitation, and moral messiness (“the gutter”), yet some retain the capacity for imagination, hope, or ideal vision (“looking at the stars”). Wilde’s phrasing refuses simple moral hierarchy—everyone is implicated—while still valuing the stance of aspiration. In context, it also functions as social critique: the “gutter” can be read as the sordid realities beneath polished respectability, and the “stars” as the ideals people invoke to dignify themselves. The line’s enduring appeal lies in its ability to acknowledge failure without surrendering the possibility of beauty or transcendence.