A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

I wonder that no criminal has ever pleaded the ugliness of your city as an excuse for his crimes.

Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that influenced us. To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty. Then, and then only, does it comes into existence.

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.

LADY BRACKNELL Algernon is an extremely, I may almost say an ostentatiously, eligible young man. He has nothing, but he looks everything. What more can one desire?

I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who would call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one.