Oscar Wilde Quotes

It's the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Who am I to tamper with a masterpiece?

It is perfectly monstrous,' he said, at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.

The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.

George Moore wrote brilliant English until he discovered grammar.

There is no such thing as a heterosexual male, only men who haven't met Oscar Wilde yet.

There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.

Wordsworth went to the Lakes, but he was never a lake poet. He found in stones the sermons he had already hidden there.

The ugly can be beautiful. The pretty, never.

One does not see anything until one sees its beauty.

And now, dear Mr. Worthing, I will not intrude any longer into a house of sorrow. I would merely beg you not to be too much bowed down by grief. What seem to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise. This seems to me a blessing of an extremely obvious kind.

Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.

An entirely new factor has appeared in the social development of the country, and this factor is the Irish-American, and his influence. To mature its powers, to concentrate its action, to learn the secret of its own strength and of England's weakness, the Celtic intellect has had to cross the Atlantic. At home it had but learned the pathetic weakness of nationality; in a strange land it realised what indomitable forces nationality possesses. What captivity was to the Jews, exile has been to the Irish: America and American influence have educated them.

Every woman becomes their mother. That's their tragedy. And no man becomes his. That's his tragedy.

If art is to have a special train, the critic must keep some seats reserved on it.

Algy, you always adopt a strictly immoral attitude towards life. You are not quite old enough to do that.

When good Americans die, they go to Paris" "Where do bad Americans go?" "They stay in America

The only thing I can't resist is temptation.

The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid

Life would be dull without them.

Art, like Nature, has her monsters

Every one of course represents the spirit of his age, but there is an eternal aspect of the Spirit of every age which may be caught. To recreate the past from the mutilated fragments of the present is the task of the Historian.

In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.

If one were to live his life fully and completely were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream.

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Even things that are true can be proved.

When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.

You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him.

But what world says that [I'm wicked]? It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms.

Men become old, but they never become good.

Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

Palermo was lovely. The most beautifully situated town in the world - it dreams away its life in the Conca d'Oro, the exquisite valley that lies between two seas. The lemon groves and the orange gardens were entirely perfect.

The aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of civilized society.

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.

Two men look out a window. One sees mud, the other sees the stars.

To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one's own relations.

It is a much cleverer thing to talk nonsense than to listen to it.

I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.

He thinks like a Tory, and talks like a Radical, and that's so important nowadays.

Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.

But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality.

Nature: a place where birds fly around uncooked

It is sweet to dance to violins When love and life are fair: To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feet To dance upon the air!

The worst slave owners were those who were kind to their slaves

Life is too short to be taken seriously.

To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.

Only mediocrities progress. An artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of which is no less perfect than the last.