Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well. Algernon. I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta. Lady Bracknell. That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together.

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

It is a dangerous thing to reform anyone.

If there is anything more annoying in the world than having people talk about you, it is certainly having no one talk about you.

All bad art is the result of good intentions.

Whenever cannibals are on the brink of starvation, Heaven, in its infinite mercy, sends them a fat missionary.

Cecily. This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade. Gwendolen. [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.