Oscar Wilde Quotes

Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas.

Learned conversation is either the affectation of the ignorant or the profession of the mentally unemployed.

The story of mankind began in a garden and ended in revelations.

Sphinxes without secrets.

So lets knock a couple back and make some noise

In art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them.

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. If it is worth having, it is worth waiting for. If it is worth attaining, it is worth fighting for. If it is worth experiencing, it is worth putting aside time for.

we always misunderstood ourselves, and rarely understood others

Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.

Love is easily killed.

I drink to separate my body from my soul.

Lord Illingworth told me this morning that there was an orchid there as beautiful as the seven deadly sins.

Football is all very well as a game for rough girls, but is hardly suitable for delicate boys.

We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.

Schools should be the most beautiful place in every town and village-so beautiful that the punishment for undutiful children should be barred from going to school the following day.

Let me be surrounded by luxury, I can do without the necessities!

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

Everything that is popular is wrong.

When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy.

Public Opinion... an attempt to organize the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force.

I am Irish by race but the English have condemned me to talk the language of Shakespeare.

I do not approve of anything which tampers with natural ignorance

Well, I can’t help going to see Sibyl play, even if it is only for an act. I get hungry for her presence; and when I think of the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I am filled with awe." "You can dine with me to-night, Dorian, can’t you?" He shook his head. "To night she is Imogen," he answered, "and tomorrow night she will be Juliet." "When is she Sibyl Vane?" "Never." "I congratulate you.

Human life--that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams.

Nothing worth learning can ever be taught

Just because a man has died for it, does not make it true.

A woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on.

The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man is.

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

Everybody in American seems in a rush to catch a train.

He who stands most remote from his age is he who mirrors it best.

A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say at the age of eighteen.

Imitation is the homage mediocrity pays to greatness.

I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.

It is only through Art and through Art only that we can realize our perfection; Through Art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.

Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people. And falsehoods the truths of other people. Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself. To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

God, bless me with luxury. Necessities I can do without.

Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.

The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion. We reject the burden of their memory, and have anodynes against them. But the little things, the things of no moment, remain with us. In some tiny ivory cell the brain stores the most delicate, and the most fleeting impressions.

Indeed, as any one who has ever worked among the poor knows only too well, the brotherhood of man is no mere poet's dream, it is a most depressing and humiliating reality.

Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.

Fruitcake is like semen, there's a lot of it about but no one wants to swallow it

By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

Nature....she will hang the night stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send word the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.

You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far.

I don’t write this letter to put bitterness into your heart, but to pluck it out of mine. For my own sake I must forgive you.