| Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet [more author details] |
- A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
- Oscar Wilde
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- A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
- Oscar Wilde
- Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
- Oscar Wilde
- America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
- Oscar Wilde
- America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
- Oscar Wilde
- Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
- Oscar Wilde
- Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
- Oscar Wilde
- At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.
- Oscar Wilde
- Biography lends to death a new terror.
- Oscar Wilde
- Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
- Oscar Wilde
- Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
- Oscar Wilde
- Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
- Oscar Wilde
- Genius is born--not paid.
- Oscar Wilde
- I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.
- Oscar Wilde
- I am not young enough to know everything.
- Oscar Wilde
- I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.
- Oscar Wilde
- I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.
- Oscar Wilde
- If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
- Oscar Wilde
- Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
- Oscar Wilde
- It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
- Oscar Wilde
- It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is fatal.
- Oscar Wilde
- Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde
- Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.
- Oscar Wilde
- Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.
- Oscar Wilde
- Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
- Oscar Wilde
- Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.
- Oscar Wilde
- One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.
- Oscar Wilde
- One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
- Oscar Wilde
- Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
- Oscar Wilde
- Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
- Oscar Wilde
- Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III
- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III
- What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III
- Only the shallow know themselves.
- Oscar Wilde, Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young, 1882
- Vile deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air, it is only what is good in man, that wastes and withers there.
- Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol
- We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
- Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost, 1882
- To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.
- Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist
- But what is the difference between literature and journalism?
...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all. - Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891
- It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
- Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891
- The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
- Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891
- A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
- Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, part 2, 1891
- One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
- Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, part 2, 1891
- Do not speak ill of society, Algie. Only people who can't get in do that.
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
- The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I
- To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I
- Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
- It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
- Oscar Wilde, The Model Millionaire, 1912
- A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891, preface
- To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
- Oscar Wilde, The Soul of a Man Under Socialism, 1881
- In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever.
- Oscar Wilde, The Soul of a Man Under Socialism, the works of Oscar Wilde ed. G., 1954
- Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made.
- Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism
- Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.
- Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism (1881)
- I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means.
- Oscar Wilde, upon being told the cost of an operation
- Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
- Oscar Wilde
- The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
- Oscar Wilde
- The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, and the young know everything.
- Oscar Wilde
- The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.
- Oscar Wilde
- The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
- Oscar Wilde
- The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
- Oscar Wilde
- There are many things that we would throw away, if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.
- Oscar Wilde
- There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.
- Oscar Wilde
- To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
- Oscar Wilde
- We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.
- Oscar Wilde
- We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.
- Oscar Wilde
- Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
- Oscar Wilde
- Why was I born with such contemporaries?
- Oscar Wilde
- Wisdom comes with winters.
- Oscar Wilde
- One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.
- Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
- The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.
- Oscar Wilde, "The Remarkable Rocket"
- The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.
- Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance, Act 3
- I don't play accurately-any one can play accurately- but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.
- Oscar Wilde, Algernon from The Importance of Being Earnest
- When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
- Oscar Wilde, An Ideal husband, 1893
- Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
- Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband, 1893, Act I
- Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons.
- Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
- Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
- Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905
- Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
- Oscar Wilde, In Life of Oscar Wilde, H. Pearson
- One's real life is often the life that one does not lead.
- Oscar Wilde, L'Envoi, 1882
- Crying is the refuge of plain women, but the ruin of pretty ones.
- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere's Fan
- My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.
- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892
- I can resist anything but temptation.
- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I
- It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I
- Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I
- Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III
