It is sometimes said that the tragedy of an artist's life is that he cannot realise his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps of most artists is that they realise their ideal too absolutely. For, when the ideal is realised, it is robbed of its wonder and its mystery, and becomes simply a new starting-point for an ideal that is other than itself.

The only form of lying that is absolutely beyond reproach is lying for its own sake.

There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose.

Nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion.

To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.

LADY BRACKNELL Algernon is an extremely, I may almost say an ostentatiously, eligible young man. He has nothing, but he looks everything. What more can one desire?

Life cheats us with shadows. We ask it for pleasure. It gives it to us with bitterness and disappointment in its train.