Irish playwright and poet, 1854–1900
The things of nature do not really belong to us; we should leave them to our children as we have received them.
Speech, Ottawa, 12 May 1882
In conclusion, Oscar Wilde died in 1900, and the quotation appeared in the 1936 book “Oscar Wilde Discovers America”. The notes section at the end of the book did not specify the documentation the authors used to verify the quotation. Thus,
QI is uncertain how to evaluate the credibility of the attribution to Wilde.
Image Notes: Public domain image of the painting “The Equatorial Jungle” by Henri Rousseau circa 1909. The image has been cropped and resized.