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“Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Gold: The kindest use a knife, because The dead so soon ...
For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die. He does not die a death of shame On a day of dark disgrace, Nor have a noose about his neck, Nor a cloth upon his face, Nor drop feet foremost through the floor Into an empty space. He does not sit with silent men
Some love too little, some too long, Some sell, and others buy; Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh: For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die.
So, when he wrote ‘each man kills the thing he loves’, Wilde meant that everyone destroys the thing he holds dearest: it seems to be in our natures to ruin those things (or people) which mean the most to us. Jealousy is one motive for such a paradoxical truth (and many of Wilde’s pithiest lines are paradoxes at heart).
The line "Each man kills the thing he loves" appears in two films concerned with ideas of criminality: Mad Love and Querelle. Robert Mitchum misquotes the poem to Janet Leigh in the 1949 film Holiday Affair – "There's a poem that runs roughly, 'Each man kicks the thing he loves.'"
Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves. Yet each man kills the thing he loves. by each let this be heard, some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word, the coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword! Some kill their love when they are young, and some when they are old;
For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die. There are men in the world who find folly in other ways. Some are liable to “love too little, some too long.” There are the men that “sell” out their love, and others who can only “buy” it.
