Oscar Wilde Quotes

When I was young, I was no one. Now, I'm worldwilde.

Bad manners make a journalist.

To give and not expect return, that is what lies at the heart of love.

M. Zola is determined to show that, if he has not got genius, he can at least be dull.

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

The only thing worse than being misquoted is being sentenced to two years' hard labour for buggery

The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

No man should have a secret from his wife. She invariably finds it out.

I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious." "Oh, that's nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense." "Nobody ever does.

Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern; one is apt to grow old fashioned quite suddenly.

I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life.

I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood.

In the old times men carried out their rights for themselves as they lived, but nowadays every baby seems born with a social manifesto in its mouth much bigger than itself.

She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.

Marriage is the one subject on which all women agree and all men disagree.

Never buy anything simply because it is expensive.

You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid

People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.

Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.

JACK That is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won't want to know Bunbury. ALGERNON Then your wife will. You don't seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is none. JACK That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years. ALGERNON Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.

Everyone may not be good, but there's always something good in everyone. Never judge anyone shortly because every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

Women treat us [men] like humanity treats gods – they worship us and keep bothering us to do something.

Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical and prosaic. It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

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

It is only very ugly or very beautiful women who ever hide their faces .

The world has been made by fools that wise men may live in it.

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.

All art is at once surface and symbol.

It takes great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.

Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.

I can't help detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves.

He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.

I can sympathize with everything, except suffering.

All art is immortal. For emotion for the sake of emotion is the aim of art, and emotion for the sake of action is the aim of life.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

I am happy in my prison of passion

The good we get from art is not what we learn from it; it is what we become through it.

Plain women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful women never are. They are always so occupied with being jealous of other women's husbands.

Society, civilized society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef.

Cultivated leisure is the aim of man.

Don't imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things. Your affection is inside of you.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.

My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces false impression

Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately with the passions and the intellect.

There are times when sorrow seems to me to be the only truth.

Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.