All thought is immoral. Its very essence is destruction. If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of.

If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.

The worst of it is that I am perpetually being punished for nothing; this governor loves to punish, and he punishes by taking my books away from me. It's perfectly awful to let the mind grind itself away between the upper and nether millstones of regret and remorse without respite; with books my life would be livable -- any life.

The sure way of knowing nothing about life is to try to make oneself useful.

Oscar Wilde was suing the Marquis of Queensbury in 1895 for libel accusing Wilde of homosexuality Counsel: Have you ever adored a young man madly? Wilde: I have never given adoration to anyone except myself.

Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.