Oscar Wilde Quotes

It was only in the theatre that I lived

An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him.

To become a spectator of one's own life is to escape the suffering of life.

Philanthropy [has become] simply the refuge of people who wish to annoy their fellow creatures.

I can believe anything provided it is quite incredible.

The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.

The only thing worse than quoting me, is not quoting me

Perhaps in nearly every joy, as certainly in every pleasure, cruelty has its place.

Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.

I have never admitted that I am more than twenty-nine, or thirty at the most. Twenty-nine when there are pink shades, thirty when there are not.

We quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows the brim - objects press around us, filling the mind with the throng of desires that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.

A woman's life revolves in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses.

I can resist everything except temptation.

We are specially designed to appeal to the sense of humour.

Some temptations are so great it takes great courage to yield to them.

I didn't have a life until I went up onstage.

Dammit Sir, it's your duty to get married. You can't always be living for pleasure!

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable.

I did not think I should be ever loved: do you indeed Love me so much as now you say you do? Ask of the sea-bird if it loves the sea, Ask of the roses if they love the rain, Ask of the little lark, that will not sing Till day break, if it loves to see the day: And yet, these are but empty images, Mere shadows of my love, which is a fire So great that all the waters of the main Can not avail to quench it.

I am afraid that woman appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated.

I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful.

Most people live for love and admiration. But it is by love and admiration that we should live.

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.

Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and literature.

I walk the world in wonder.

It's beauty that captures your attention. personality which captures your heart.

He is some brainless, beautiful creature, who should always be here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in the summer when we want something to chill our intelligence.

If you are going to tell people the truth, you had better make them laugh or they will kill you.

I made your sorrow mine also, that you might have help in bearing it.

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtures are not real to him. His sins, if there are such thing as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him.

Personality must be accepted for what it is. You mustn't mind that a poet is a drunk, rather that drunks are not always poets.

A grand passion is the privelege of people who have nothing to do.

Do you know that I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world? Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance.

LADY STUTFIELD I adore silent men. MRS ALLONBY Oh, Ernest isn't silent. He talks the whole time. But he has got no conversation. What he talks about I don't know. I haven't listened to him for years.

No work of art ever puts forward views. Views belong to people who are not artists.

The basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.

Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.

As one reads history ... one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted.

The Roman Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone - for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do.

But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means? Anybody can say charming things and try to please and to flatter, but a true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good.

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

Progress is the realization of utopia.

Every single work of art is the fulfillment of a prophecy; for every work of art is the conversion of an idea into an image.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Lust, Some with the hands of Gold: The kindest use a knife, because The dead so soon grow cold. Some love too little, some too long, Some sell, and others buy; Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh: For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die.

Do not forget that small daily actions do or undo character.

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always prevent us from carrying them out.