412 Oscar Wilde Quotes
There is no sin except stupidity
All art is quite useless
Wisdom comes with winters
Hatred is blind, as well as love
Everything popular is wrong
Time is a waste of money
The coward does it with a kiss
All art is immoral
Genius is born, not paid
More deaths than one must die

Oscar Wilde quotes with pictures

It is sweet to dance to violins
Punctuality is the thief of time
Who, being loved, is poor?
Some do it with a bitter look
I never saw a man who looked
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing
The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it
No man is rich enough to buy back his own past
I am not young enough to know everything
Life is too important to be taken seriously
I don't recognize you, I've changed a lot
Sooner or later we have all to pay for what we do
True friends stab you in the front
I have nothing to declare except my genuis
I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead
To be great is to be misunderstood
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure
A poet can survive everything but a misprint
The vilest deeds like poison weeds
Only the shallow know themselves
Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast
This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last
Charity creates a multitude of sins
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious
Work is the curse of the drinking classes
Cultivated leisure is the aim of man
I can resist anything but temptation
The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast
Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future
I love acting. It is so much more real than life
Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal
Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace
When good Americans die they go to Paris
I am dying as I have lived: beyond my means
Where there is sorrow there is holy ground
Those whom the gods love grow young
Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality
I can believe anything as long as it is incredible
His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning
I live in terror of not being misunderstood
Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us
Why was I born with such contemporaries?
The supreme vice is shallowness
Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life
I can sympathise with everything, except suffering
Women are made to be loved, not understood
Nothing is so aggravating than calmness
It is always the unreadable that occurs
Illusion is the first of all pleasures
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling
Biography lends to death a new terror
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow
All that we know who lie in gaol
She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness
No gentleman ever has any money
There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose
Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best
In married life three is company and two none
What is mind but motion in the intellectual sphere?
Something was dead in each of us
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate
Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation
The best way to make children good is to make them happy
The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes
They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it
Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds
I have but the simplest taste, I am always satisfied with the best
The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing
Success is a science, if you have the conditions, you get the result
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution
The English have a miraculous power of turning wine into water
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple
It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars
Ignorance is like a delicate flower: touch it and the bloom is gone
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating
The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death
A thing is, according to the mode in which one looks at it
Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities
Some cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go
We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities
The play was a great success but the audience was a disaster
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing
One's real life is often the life that one does not lead
Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends
We are specially designed to appeal to the sense of humour
One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards
Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much
I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly
To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect
Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer
Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons
A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament
In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing
Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance
Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there
A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her
My own business always bores me to death, I prefer other people's
I put all my genius into my life, I put only my talent into my works
If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out
When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers
However, it is always nice to be expected, and not to arrive
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all
If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life
The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out
A simile committing suicide is always a depressing spectacle
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess
The gods bestowed on Max the gift of perpetual old age
Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same
In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press
Youth! Youth! There is nothing in the world but youth!
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex
Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty
I often take exercise. Why only yesterday I had breakfast in bed
Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are
Popularity is the crown of laurel which the world puts on bad art
In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust
Niagara Falls is the bride's second great disappointment
Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions
We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow
In all pointed sentences some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you
The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves
Two men look out a window. One sees mud, the other sees the stars
Education is an admirable thing, but nothing that is worth knowing can be taught
Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means
To make men Socialists is nothing, but to make Socialism human is a great thing
No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly
The man who can dominate a London dinner table can dominate the world
Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat
What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us
Never speak disrespectfully of Society. Only people who can't get into it do that
The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike
Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived
Men always want to be a woman's first love, women like to be a man's last romance
Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing
I am always astonishing myself. It is the only thing that makes life worth living
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination
Extravagance is the luxury of the poor, penury is the luxury of the rich
One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged
It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is fatal
It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little
Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both
The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you
The critic has to educate the public, the artist has to educate the critic
Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself
Dammit, sir, it is your duty to get married. You can't be always living for pleasure
It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But, it is better to be good than to be ugly
The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life
I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying
An excellent man: he has no enemies, and none of his friends like him
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his
Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do
The growing influence of women is the one reassuring thing in our political life
The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes
How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive
Buck up and be jolly, my dear lady! Stillbirth is a sign that God has a sense of humour!
One of the requisites of sanity is to disagree with the majority of the British public
Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable
There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies
A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction
Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not
No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all
We are the zanies of sorrow. We are clowns whose hearts are broken
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about
Good taste is the excuse I've always given for leading such a bad life
I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability
The only creative thought one can have in an institution is how to get out
Now art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic
My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go
I never play cricket. It requires one to assume such indecent postures
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal
It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius
One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally
Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative
I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about
The General was essentially a man of peace, except in his domestic life
I suppose publishers are untrustworthy. They certainly always look it
It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information
If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world
In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer
I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital importance of being earnest
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art
I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram
Duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself
The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written
By persistently remaining single a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation
The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one
There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead
I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul
In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin
The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years
When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy
There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob, all authority is equally bad
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language
The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life
Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others
To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose both looks like carelessness
What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying
I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited
To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live
Science can never grapple with the irrational. That is why it has no future before it, in this world
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people
Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion
Nowadays, all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men
When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her
It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it
Really, if the lower orders don't set a good example, what on earth is the use of them?
I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones
Ah! Don't say you agree with me. When people agree with me. I always feel that I must be wrong
I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously
Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious
A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself
Men marry because they are tired, women because they are curious. Both are disappointed
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between
Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives
If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk
Vulgarity is the conduct of other people, just as falsehoods are the truths of other people
America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up
Like dear St Francis of Assisi I am wedded to Poverty: but in my case the marriage is not a success
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist
When one pays a visit it is for the purpose of wasting other people's time, not one's own
I'm sure I don't know half the people who come to my house. Indeed, for all I hear, I shouldn't like to
As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied
My dear father, if we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it
Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm
Tell me, when you are alone with him Sphinx, does he take off his face and reveal his mask?
Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others
Society exists only as a mental concept, in the real world there are only individuals
Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious
The book of life begins with a man and a woman in a garden, and ends with Revelations
Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life
Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account
He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives
It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes
Now don't stir. I'll be back in five minutes. And don't fall into any temptations while I am away
Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes his biography
As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them
Closed eyes listen, afraid to see on their own. Easily influenced and simply conformed
Ah! That must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner
Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning. He used poetry as a medium for writing in prose
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly, that is what each of us is here for
To get into the best society nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people
In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever
By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community
The longer I live, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us
If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by always being immensely over-educated
When I was young I used to think that money was the most important thing in life. Now that I am old, I know it is
The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read
To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual
Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement
To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable
To many, no doubt, he will seem blatent and bumptious, but we prefer to regard him as being simply British
The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train
I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth
If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized
The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring
Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it
The English are always degrading truths into facts. When a truth becomes a fact it loses all its intellectual value
It is very easy to endure the difficulties of one's enemies. It is the successes of one's friends that are hard to bear
My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes
He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him
Vile deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air, it is only what is good in man, that wastes and withers there
While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance
It is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes
There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us
There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be
One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation
The world is divided into two classes, those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable
Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies
It is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth
One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar
Whenever cannibals are on the brink of starvation, Heaven, in its infinite mercy, sends them a fat missionary
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship
I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy
Women have a much better time than men in this world. There are far more things forbidden to them
All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon
Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays
Musical people always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be perfectly deaf
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world
The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties
An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be
I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything
The English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected
Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away
On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure
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
Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them
Oh, why will parents always appear at the wrong time? Some extraordinary mistake in nature, I suppose
The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it
At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets
No woman, plain or pretty, has any common sense at all, sir. Common sense is the privilege of our sex
One must have some sort of occupation nowadays. If I hadn't my debts I shouldn't have anything to think about
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation
Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you
I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect
I don't wish to sign my name, though I am afraid everybody will know who the writer is: one's style is one's signature always
The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it
In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience
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
A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation
The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women merely adored
Find expression for a sorrow, and it will become dear to you. Find expression for a joy, and you will intensify its ecstasy
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
Women love men for their defects, if men have enough of them, women will forgive them anything, even their gigantic intellects
I'm glad to hear you smoke. A man should always have an occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London as it is
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason
I hope you're not leading a double life, pretending to be wicked while being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy
One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything
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
Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success
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
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
There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about
I have made an important discovery, that alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, produces all the effects of intoxication
It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties
Mothers, of course, are all right. They pay a chap's bills and don't bother him. But fathers bother a chap and never pay his bills
She is absolutely inadmissible into society. Many a woman has a past, but I am told that she has at least a dozen, and that they all fit
Nowadays we are all of us so hard up that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. They're the only things we can pay
Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us, and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more
The sick do not ask if the hand that smoothes their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin
There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else
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
To be really medieval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes
Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die
To have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact, talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you
There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating, people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing
A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life
It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one, behind one's back, that are absolutely and entirely true
When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance
In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody
The extraordinary thing about the lower classes in England is that they are always losing their relations. They are extremely fortunate in that respect
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
A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing
Even the disciple has his uses. He stands behind one's throne, and at the moment of one's triumph whispers in one's ear that, after all, one is immortal
I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose
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
I don't play accurately. Any one can play accurately, but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life
Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made
It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read
People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it's impossible to count them accurately
Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a mirror
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
Plain women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful women never are. They are always so occupied with being jealous of other women's husbands
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
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 amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public
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
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
Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One must eat muffins quite calmly, it is the only way to eat them
The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity. But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable
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
The fact is, that civilisation 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
When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?
There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better
Tell the cook of this restaurant with my compliments that these are the very worst sandwiches in the whole world, and that, when I ask for a watercress sandwich, I do not mean a loaf with a field in the middle of it
When a man does exactly what a woman expects him to do she doesn't think much of him. One should always do what a woman doesn't expect, just as one should say what she doesn't understand
To speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which I think is never advisable
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
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies
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 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
To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture

Oscar Wilde sayings and pictures

The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble. For Chuang Tsu spent his life in preaching the great creed of Inaction, and in pointing out the uselessness of all things
It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style
The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man. And certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not?