Oscar Wilde Quotes

Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.

Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!

How strange a thing this is! The Priest telleth me that the Soul is worth all the gold in the world, and the merchants say that it is not worth a clipped piece of silver.

Any place you love is the world to you”, explained the pensive Catherine Wheel, who had been attached to an old deal box in early life, and prided herself on her broken heart; “but love is not fashionable any more, the poets have killed it. They wrote so much about that nobody believed them, and I am not surprised. True love suffers, and is silent. I remember myself once- But it is no matter now. Romance is a thing of the past.

I quite agree with Dr. Nordau's assertion that all men of genius are insane, but Dr. Nordau forgets that all sane people are idiots.

If people are dishonest once, they will be dishonest a second time. And honest people should keep away from them. (Lady Chiltern)

Just be your self. Everybody else is already taken.

If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.

I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.

The 19thc hatred of Realism is Caliban's enraged reaction to seeing his own face in the mirror. The 19thc rejection of Romanticism is Caliban's fury at not seeing his face reflected in the mirror.

It is Nature who makes our artists for us, though it may be Art who taught them their right mode of expression.

It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.

Fantastic shadows of birds

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.

When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.

I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.

London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognize them. They look so thoroughly unhappy.

They did not understand a single word of what he was saying, but that made no matter, for they put their heads on one side, and looked wise, which is quite as good as understanding a thing, and very much easier.

Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.

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.

It is only the sacred things that are worth touching

After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own. Music always seems to me to produce that effect. It creates for one a past of which one has been ignorant, and fills one with a sense of sorrows that have been hidden from one’s tears.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, The hand that held the steel: For only blood can wipe out blood, And only tears can heal

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

History is a lie commonly agreed upon.

What is mind but motion in the intellectual sphere?

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

A man who takes himself too seriously will find that no one else takes him seriously.

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

My life-my whole life- take it, and do with it what you will. I love you-love you as I have never loved any living thing. From the moment I met you I loved you, loved you blindly, adoringly,madly! You didn't know it then-you know it now.

They've promised that dreams can come true - but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams, too.

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

Oh, how I vainly wished to the bearded man in the sky that I was Neapolitan. Why? So I could bring in a fine Neapolitan pest control to help with Queensberry's problem before it gets out of hand.

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted.

The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.

One should never make one's entrance with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an interest to one's old age.

Youth is the only thing worth having.

One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.

A good friend will always stab you in the front.

A virtuous abstinence from the joys of pederasty comes most easily to those who have no taste for it.

When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.

Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons.

Education is very admirable but let us not forget that anything worth knowing cannot be taught.

The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happy married life.

I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram.

On the whole, the great success of marriage in the States is due partly to the fact that no American man is ever idle, and partly to the fact that no American wife is considered responsible for the quality of her husband's dinners.

Nothing is so aggravating than calmness.