Oscar Wilde

Work is the curse of the drinking class.

It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give really unbiased opinions, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always valueless.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

Why was I born with such contemporaries?

One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.

Missionaries are going to reform the world whether it wants to or not.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

What people call insincerity is simply a method by which we can multiply our personalities.

It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
Oscar Wilde - The picture of Dorian Gray
Being natural is simply a pose.

Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief.

Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
Oscar Wilde - "De Profundis"
... Nature, whose sweet rains fall of just and unjust alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undetected. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send 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.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.

We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.
Oscar Wilde - Foreward, The Picture of Dorian gray
The only excuse for creating something useless is that one admires it intensely.
Oscar Wilde - , in a letter to his friend, Frances Forbes-Robertson, who had invited him to her wedding in London, but Wilde was
Like dear St. Francis of Assisi I am wedded to Poverty: but in my case the marriage is not a success.

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.

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.
Oscar Wilde - The Model Millionaire, 1912
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

Life imitates art more than art imitates life.
Oscar Wilde - A Picture of Dorian Grey - Preface
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, the preface
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their own peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their own peril.

Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891, preface
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.

Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.

The proper basis for marriage is a mutual misunderstanding.

The English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
Oscar Wilde - The Critic as Artist, 1891
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I
To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Ernest
The very essence of love is uncertainty.

Sometimes it takes courage to give into temptation.

One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.

To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy. It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion for middle-class respectability.
Oscar Wilde - The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Vile deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air, it is only what is good in man, that wastes and withers there.

Punctuality is the thief of time.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
Oscar Wilde - An Ideal Husband, 1893, Act I
Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
Oscar Wilde - Letter from Paris, dated May 1900
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.

A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life.
Oscar Wilde - An Ideal Husband
The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women? merely adored.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices.

Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Grey
There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.

Dreamers can find their way by moonlight and their only punishment is that they see the dawn before the rest of the world.

I sometimes think that God, in creating man, overestimated His ability.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Journalism justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarist.

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.

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

The basis for optimism is sheer terror.

I must decline your invitation owing to a subsequent engagement.

Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.

Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

Beauty is a form of genius--is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.
Oscar Wilde - The picture of Dorian Gray
Knowledge would be fatal, it is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things beautiful.

I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.
Oscar Wilde - "An Ideal Husband"
To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.
Oscar Wilde - The Critic as Artist, part 2, 1891
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Oscar Wilde - The Ballad of Reading Gaol
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.

It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.
Oscar Wilde - The Canterville Ghost, 1882
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.

I am not young enough to know everything.

Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

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

The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture, and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, the preface
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.

Only the shallow know themselves.

Action: the last resource of those who know not how to dream.
Oscar Wilde - The picture of Dorian Gray
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

I am not young enough to know everything.

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

Imagination is a quality given to man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humaor is provided to console him from what he is.

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only the shallow people who do not judge by appearances.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

There is no sin except stupidity.
Oscar Wilde - Jack from The Importance of Being Earnest
When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.
Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Grey
People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.

Action is the last refuge of those who cannot dream.

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
She is a peacock in everything but beauty.

There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing, as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.

Oscar Wilde: "I wish I had said that." Whistler: "You will, Oscar; you will.

Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Grey
All art is quite useless.

It is an odd thing, but everyone who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, the preface
All art is quite useless.

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

Everyone who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

Life is too important to be taken seriously.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live. It is asking other people to live as one wishes to live.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.

The only possible form of exercise is to talk, not to walk.
Oscar Wilde - as he sipped champagne on his deathbed
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.

I am not young enough to know everything.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

While one should always study the method of a great artist, one should never imitate his manner. The manner of an artist is essentially individual, the method of an artist is absolutely universal. The first is personality, which no one should copy; the second is perfection, which all should aim at.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.

The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.
Oscar Wilde - "The Remarkable Rocket"
The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.
Oscar Wilde - Quoted in Ellmann
It often happens that the real tragedies in life occur in such an inarticulate manner that they hurt one by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
...my dear boy, no woman is a genius. They are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.

I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.

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.

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

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

A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.

Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

My wallpaper and i are fighting a duel to death. One or the other has to go.

The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling I have always cultivated.

I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.

America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

Eduaction is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

The only charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception necessary for both parties.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Oscar Wilde - as he sipped champagne on his deathbed
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.
Oscar Wilde - A Woman of No Importance, Act 3
The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.
Oscar Wilde - The picture of Dorian Gray
Sin is the only real colour element left in modern life.

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
Oscar Wilde - The Critic as Artist, part 2, 1891
One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

Genius is born--not paid.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Oscar Wilde - A Picture of Dorian Grey
Live the wonderful life that is in you.

Only the shallow know themselves.

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Grey
Philanthropic people lose all sense of Humanity, it is their distinguishing characteristic.

Science is the record of dead religions.

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.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, chapter 6
When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

Biography lends to death a new terror.

Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex.

Art is the most intense form of individualism that the world has known.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
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.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Philanthropy is the refuge of rich people who wish to annoy their fellow creatures.

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.

Experience...is simply the name we give our mistakes.

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

Divorces are made in heaven.

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
A grand passion is the privelege of people who have nothing to do.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.

The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

The English country gentleman galloping after a fox -- the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.

Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.

I have the simplest of tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest
I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
Oscar Wilde - The Critic as Artist, 1891
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
Oscar Wilde - Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young, 1882
Only the shallow know themselves.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

Democracy is the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Oscar Wilde - "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.

The problem with the common person is that he is so unbearably common!
Oscar Wilde - The Critic as Artist, 1891
But what is the difference between literature and journalism?
...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.
Oscar Wilde - upon being told the cost of an operation
I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means.
Oscar Wilde - In Life of Oscar Wilde, H. Pearson
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
Oscar Wilde - An Ideal husband, 1893
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well worth remembering from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

Philosophy teaches us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of others.

About foxhunting: The unspeakable chasing the uneatable.

It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship; and it is by far the best ending for one.

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Bore: a man who is never unintentionally rude.

I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.

Chastity is the greatest form of perversion.
Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest
He has never written a single book, so you can imagine how much he knows.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, Prologue
All art is quite useless.
Oscar Wilde - As he passed through customs
I have nothing to declare but my genius.

Conscience and cowardice are really the same thing. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm.
Oscar Wilde - The picture of Dorian Gray
When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.

To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

- Oscar Wilde