Best quotes by the Irish Dramatist Oscar Wilde
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.
The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.
True friends stab you in the front.
Art provides the language we need to appreciate life.
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
The old believe everything; the middle aged suspect everything, and the young know everything.
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
The heart was made to be broken.
Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.
If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
No great artist ever sees things as they really are, if he did he would cease to be an artist.
Lots of people act well, but few people talk well. This shows that talking is the more difficult of the two.
We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.
Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.
Punctuality is the thief of time
The greatest of all sins is stupidity.
None of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves.
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To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
Art provides the language we need to appreciate life.
Life, Lady Stutfield, is simply a mauvais quart d'heure made up of exquisite moments.
The man who says he has exhausted life generally means that life has exhausted him.
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
Life is the art of being well deceived, and to succeed, it must be habitual and uninterrupted.
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when one thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion.
We quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows the brim -- objects press around us, filling the mind with the throng of desires that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.
Life! Life! Don't let us go to life for our fulfillment or our experience. It is a thing narrowed by circumstances, incoherent in its utterance, and without that fine correspondence of form and spirit which is the only thing that can satisfy the artistic
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.
The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.
Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.
In married life three is company and two none.
There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.
Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
Life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.
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Oscar Wilde art quotes
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Art provides the language we need to appreciate life.
No great artist ever sees things as they really are, if he did he would cease to be an artist.
All that I desire to point out is the general principle that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
In a very ugly and sensible age, the arts borrow, not from life, but from each other.
All art is quite useless.
It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.
An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.
Modern pictures are, no doubt, delightful to look at. At least, some of them are. But they are quite impossible to live with; they are too clever, too assertive, too intellectual. Their meaning is too obvious, and their method too clearly defined. One
Bad artists always admire each other's work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those he has selected.
Bad art is a great deal worse than no art at all.
It is sometimes said that the tragedy of an artist's life is that he cannot realise his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps of most artists is that they realise their ideal too absolutely. For, when the ideal is realised, it is robbed of its wonder and its mystery, and becomes simply a new starting-point for an ideal that is other than itself.
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying.
Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.
Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
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Oscar Wilde marriage quotes
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Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.
There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.
They are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and abominably conceited when they are not.
Pardon me, you are not engaged to any one. When you do become engaged to some one, I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact. An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself.
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. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect -- simply a confession of failures.
What a fuss people make about fidelity! Why, even in love it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to do with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say.
The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes.
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.
Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin, but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building.
They flaunt their conjugal felicity in one's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins.
On the whole, the great success of marriage in the States is due partly to the fact that no American man is ever idle, and partly to the fact that no American wife is considered responsible for the quality of her husband's dinners.
Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which is never advisable.
London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognize them. They look so thoroughly unhappy.
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.
The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.
How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.
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The heart was made to be broken.
One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
When a man has once loved a woman, he will do anything for her, except continue to love her.
Hearts Live By Being Wounded
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look
Some with a flattering word
The coward does it with a kiss
The brave man with a sword
There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves from all let this be heard some does it with a bitter look some with a flattering word the coward does it with a kiss the brave man with the sword.
There's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It's a thing no married man knows anything about.
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her.
Hatred is blind, as well as love.
Women are made to be loved, not understood.
I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.
Life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.
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To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.
I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.
My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!
Cecily. This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.
Gwendolen. [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
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.
Jack. This ghastly state of things is what you call Bunburying, I suppose?
Algernon. Yes, and a perfectly wonderful Bunbury it is. The most wonderful Bunbury I have ever had in my life.
Jack. Well, you've no right whatsoever to Bunbury here.
Algernon. That is absurd. One has a right to Bunbury anywhere one chooses. Every serious Bunburyist knows that.
Indeed, no woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.
Come, dear, [Gwendolen rises] we have already missed five, if not six, trains. To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform.
I never change, except in my affections.
The basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.
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I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
It's absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
A true gentleman is one who is never unintentionally rude.
The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man is.
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.
Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.
The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.
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.
When one pays a visit it is for the purpose of wasting other people's time, not one's own.
Always forgive your enemies -- nothing annoys them so much.
To love oneself is the beginning of a life long romance.
A pessimist is one who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
I can resist anything except temptation.
To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
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.
How else but through a broken heart may Lord Christ enter in?
Conversation should touch everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing.
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
He must have a truly romantic nature, for he weeps when there is nothing at all to weep about.
Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
I am dying beyond my means.
One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
Life, Lady Stutfield, is simply a mauvais quart d'heure made up of exquisite moments.
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.
Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.
When a man has once loved a woman, he will do anything for her, except continue to love her.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.
The best way to make children good is to make them happy.
The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.
Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt.
How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say.
There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.
In America, the President reigns for four years, and journalism governs for ever and ever.
All that I desire to point out is the general principle that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.
This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again.
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.
Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.
I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing.
Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and literature.
To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist -- the problem is entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one's vinegar.
Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.
Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship.
Imagination is a quality given a man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.
Pleasure is Nature
He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigram on his tombstone.
There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.
The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life.
I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
I delight in men over seventy. They always offer one the devotion of a lifetime.
His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language.
The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.
For his mourners will be outcast men, and outcasts always mourn.
As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.
Nowadays, all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
Experience is the name we give to our mistakes.
If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it by one's conversation.
I never saw a man who looked with such a wistful eye upon that little tent of blue which prisoners call the sky.
A poet can survive anything but a misprint.
The more one analyses people, the more all reasons for analysis disappear. Sooner or later one comes to that dreadful universal thing called human nature.
He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Self-denial is the shining sore on the leprous body of Christianity.
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
Charity creates a multitude of sins.
Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.
Skepticism is the beginning of Faith.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
It is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has been able to find its way.
Consistency is the last resort of the unimaginative.
Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is usually Judas who writes the biography.
To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune... to lose both seems like carelessness.
Vulgarity is the conduct of other people, just as falsehoods are the truths of other people.
There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all.
Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman.
Never speak disrespectfully of Society. Only people who can't get into it do that.
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.
Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.
Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.
There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating - people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.
Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.
While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.
One should not be too severe on English novels; they are the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed.
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.
All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.
To make men Socialists is nothing, but to make Socialism human is a great thing.
There can be nothing more frequent than an occasional drink.
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet's dream: it is a most depressing and humiliating reality.
Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.
Where there is sorrow there is holy ground.
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing.
Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.
Work is a refuge of people who have nothing better to do.
The suspense is terrible, I hope it will last.
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.
The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years.
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