If art is to have a special train, the critic must keep some seats reserved on it.

Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.

The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith, and the lesson of romance.

Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realized by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good.

I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

God and other artists are always a little obscure.

My philosophy? I'm always right and you are wrong.