All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and it degrades those over whom it is exercised.
Oscar WildeWhen I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy.
Oscar WildeThere is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtures are not real to him. His sins, if there are such thing as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him.
Oscar WildeJack? . . . No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations . . . I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single momentโs solitude. The only really safe name is Ernest.
Oscar Wilde