Nothing is so aggravating as calmness. There is something positively brutal about the good temper of most modern men.
Oscar WildeTo disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
Oscar WildeHe is fairer than the morning star, and whiter than the moon. For his body I would give my soul, and for his love I would surrender heaven.
Oscar WildeAs for borrowing Mr. Whistler's ideas about art, the only thoroughly original ideas I have heard him express have had reference to his own superiority as a painter over painters greater than himself.
Oscar WildeBehind joy and laughter there may be a temperament, coarse, hard and callous. But behind sorrow there is always sorrow. Pain, unlike pleasure, wears no mask. ... For this reason there is no truth comparable to sorrow. There are times when sorrow seems to me to be the only truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye or the appetite, made to blind the one and cloy the other, but out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star there is pain.
Oscar Wilde