Quotations by Oscar Wilde
Quotations | Speeches | Poetry
Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, novelist and poet
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (October 16, 1854 - November 30, 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and author of short stories. Known for his barbed wit, he was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. (Source: Wikipedia)
Quotations
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
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.
America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.
Biography lends to death a new terror.
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.
I am not young enough to know everything.
I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.
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.
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 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.
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.
One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
Why was I born with such contemporaries?
One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar. (from "The Picture of Dorian Gray")
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers. (from An Ideal husband, 1893)
Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. (from An Ideal Husband, 1893, Act I)
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. (from De Profundis, 1905)
Work is the curse of the drinking classes. (from In Life of Oscar Wilde, H. Pearson)
One's real life is often the life that one does not lead. (from L'Envoi, 1882)
I can resist anything but temptation. (from Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I)
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. (from Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about. (from Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I)
Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. (from Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III)
Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. (from Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III)
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. (from Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III)
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. (from Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III)
Only the shallow know themselves. (from Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young, 1882)
Vile deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air, it is only what is good in man, that wastes and withers there. (from The Ballad of Reading Gaol)
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language. (from The Canterville Ghost, 1882)
But what is the difference between literature and journalism? ...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all. (from The Critic as Artist, 1891)
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art. (from The Critic as Artist, 1891)
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius. (from The Critic as Artist, 1891)
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. (from 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. (from The Critic as Artist, part 2, 1891)
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. (from 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. (from The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I)
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. (from The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3)
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. (from The Model Millionaire, 1912)
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them. (from The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891)
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex. (from The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891)
I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible. (from 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. (from 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. (from The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891)
I love acting. It is so much more real than life. (from The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891)
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. (from The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891)
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing. (from The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891)
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected. (from 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. (from The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891)
The basis of optimism is sheer terror. (from The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891)
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. (from 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. (from 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. (from 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. (from 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. (from 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. (from The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891)
Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives. (from 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. (from The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891)
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.
Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success. (from The Soul of Man under Socialism, 1881)
I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means. (Upon being told the cost of an operation.)
