“Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.”

Photo credit: poetryfoundation.org

Irish writer and poet Oscar Wilde is beloved for his incomparable, grating wit. Even when the author was nearing death in Paris’s Hôtel d’Alsace (known simply as L’Hôtel today) he found the means to make one final, clever remark.

Some say Wilde died from syphilis, while others insist he fell victim to a severe ear-infection. Whatever the fatal ailment, his last words were directed towards the gaudy hotel wallpaper when he exclaimed the above lines.

Needless to say, the wallpaper won.