Oscar Wilde Quotes
America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they`ll kill you.
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one`s nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.
One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
I am not young enough to know everything.
I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.
At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.
A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.
I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.
One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
Genius is born--not paid.
It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is fatal.
Biography lends to death a new terror.
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Who, being loved, is poor?
True friends stab you in the front.
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.
Authority is quite degrading
The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it`s dead for you.
Whenever cannibals are on the brink of starvation, Heaven, in its infinite mercy, sends them a nice plump missionary
The worst form of tyranny the world has ever known the tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts.
There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.
He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic - a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty, and to the various impressions that beauty gives us.
People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately
Murder is always a mistake - one should never do anything one cannot talk about after dinner
Men become old, but they never become good
Nothing is so aggravating than calmness.
When I was young, I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old, I know it is
I have nothing to declare but my genius.
Insincerity is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities
The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Men always want to be a woman`s first love - women like to be a mans last romance.
All art is quite useless.
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes, they forgive them
The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.
History is merely gossip
A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.
I have nothing to declare except my genius.
To become a spectator of one`s own life is to escape the suffering of life.
Nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude
A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don`t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.
Questions are never indiscreet: answers sometimes are
I am so clever that sometimes I don`t understand a single word of what I am saying.
Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot.
The old believe everything; the middle aged suspect everything: the young know everything.
My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people`s
I can sympathize with everything, except suffering.
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
I have made an important discovery... that alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, produces all the effect of intoxication.
To love one`s self is the beginning of a life-long romance
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.
Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation
All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.
There is no sin except stupidity.
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others
True friends stab you in the front.
I don`t like compliments, and I don`t see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn`t mean
My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people`s.
Who, being loved, is poor?
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously.
Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered.
I sometimes think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one, behind one`s back, that are absolutely and entirely true.
The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.
If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn`t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
Vulgarity is the conduct of other people, just as falsehoods are the truths of other people
Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob
The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
When liberty comes with hands dabbled in blood it is hard to shake hands with her.
In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever
To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance
Vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people.
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone`s feelings unintentionally.
Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world.
Why was I born with such contemporaries?
Put your talent into your work, but your genius into your life
All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
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.
The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life`s tragedy.
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love`s tragedies.
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
Everything popular is wrong.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.
Seriousness is the last refuge of the shallow.
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man`s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.
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.
I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.
His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
Hatred is blind, as well as love.
Only the shallow know themselves.
No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one`s mistakes.
The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever.
Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.
Scepticism is the beginning of Faith.
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances
The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork - Oscar Wilde
Men always want to be a woman`s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We woman have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man`s last romance.
This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.
Nothing makes one so vain as being told one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all.
One`s real life is often the life that one does not lead
Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.
The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly deceived
Extravagance is the luxury of the poor; penury is the luxury of the rich
Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life
What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise
The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
In examinations, the foolish ask questions the wise cannot answer.
People who love only once in their lives are. . . shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.
The world has been made by fools that men should live in it
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
The heart was made to be broken
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
In the world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.
Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one`s nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
These days man knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
The worst vice of a fanatic is his sincerity.
Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality
Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
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.
It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.
Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything, except a good reputation.
The final mystery is oneself.
Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.
A kiss may ruin a human life.
Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.
Self denial is the shining sore on the leprous body of Christianity.
The security of Society lies in custom and unconscious instinct, and the basis of the stability of Society, as a healthy organism, is the complete absence of any intelligence amongst its members.
The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
I don`t at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.
I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell
Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
One can give a really unbiased opinion only about things that do not interest one
I like men who have a future and women who have a past
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution
The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing
I can resist anything but temptation.
It (cricket) requires one to assume such indecent postures
The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.
A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.
Conversation should touch everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing.
The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
He hadn`t a single redeeming vice.
Looking good and dressing well is a necessity. Having a purpose in life is not.
I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.
An inordinate passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young
But what is the difference between literature and journalism?
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
No crime is vulgar, but all vulgarity is crime
I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.
By persistently remaining single a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation.
When good Americans die they go to Paris.
Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
Ambition is the last refuge of failure.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.
I can believe anything provided it is incredible.
When a love comes to an end, weaklings cry, efficient ones instantly find another love, and the wise already have one in reserve.
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
I have met a lot of hardboiled eggs in my time, but you`re twenty minutes.
I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing.
When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one`s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what world calls a romance.
I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.
Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.
Experience is one thing you can`t get for nothing.
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.
What people call insincerity is simply a method by which we can multiply our personalities.
Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it
The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.
I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.
Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Comfort is the only thing our civilization can give us.
Simple pleasures are always the last refuge of the complex
Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.
How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
