The only way to even approach doing something perfectly is through experience, and experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.

I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o'clock.

What are American dry-goods? asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb. American novels, answered Lord Henry.

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

Fashion rests upon folly. Art rests upon law. Fashion is ephemeral. Art is eternal. Indeed what is a fashion really? A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months! It is quite clear that were it beautiful and rational we would not alter anything that combined those two rare qualities. And wherever dress has been so, it has remained unchanged in law and principle for many hundred years.

I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.