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Oscar Wilde Quotes
Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet
| “ | I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means.
upon being told the cost of an operation | ” |
| “ | Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.
The Soul of Man under Socialism (1881) | ” |
| “ | 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.
The Soul of Man Under Socialism | ” |
| “ | There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891, preface | ” |
| “ | Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 | ” |
| “ | Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
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 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.
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.
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.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 | ” |
| “ | 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.
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.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 | ” |
| “ | The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
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.
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 Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 | ” |
| “ | One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
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.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 | ” |
| “ | I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
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.
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.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 | ” |
| “ | I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 | ” |
| “ | I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 | ” |
| “ | Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 | ” |
| “ | A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 | ” |
| “ | It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
The Model Millionaire, 1912 | ” |
| “ | 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 Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3 | ” |
| “ | To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I | ” |
| “ | The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I | ” |
| “ | Do not speak ill of society, Algie. Only people who can't get in do that.
The Importance of Being Earnest | ” |
| “ | 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.
The Critic as Artist, part 2, 1891 | ” |
| “ | A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
The Critic as Artist, part 2, 1891 | ” |
| “ | The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
The Critic as Artist, 1891 | ” |
| “ | It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
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.
The Critic as Artist, 1891 | ” |
| “ | 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.
The Critic as Artist | ” |
| “ | We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
The Canterville Ghost, 1882 | ” |
| “ | Vile deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air, it is only what is good in man, that wastes and withers there.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol | ” |
| “ | Only the shallow know themselves.
Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young, 1882 | ” |
| “ | What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III | ” |
| “ | We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III | ” |
| “ | Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III | ” |
| “ | Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III | ” |
| “ | Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I | ” |
| “ | It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I | ” |
| “ | I can resist anything but temptation.
Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I | ” |
| “ | My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.
Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892 | ” |
| “ | One's real life is often the life that one does not lead.
L'Envoi, 1882 | ” |
| “ | Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
In Life of Oscar Wilde, H. Pearson | ” |
| “ | Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
De Profundis, 1905 | ” |
| “ | Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons.
De Profundis | ” |
| “ | Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
An Ideal Husband, 1893, Act I | ” |
| “ | When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
An Ideal husband, 1893 | ” |
| “ | 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.
Algernon from The Importance of Being Earnest | ” |
| “ | The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.
A Woman of No Importance, Act 3 | ” |
| “ | 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.
"The Remarkable Rocket" | ” |
| “ | One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.
"The Picture of Dorian Gray" | ” |
| “ | Wisdom comes with winters. | ” |
| “ | Why was I born with such contemporaries? | ” |
| “ | Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
| ” |
| “ | We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow. | ” |
| “ | We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities. | ” |
| “ | To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
| ” |
| “ | There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. | ” |
| “ | The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
| ” |
| “ | The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. | ” |
| “ | The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.
| ” |
| “ | The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
| ” |
| “ | Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow. | ” |
| “ | Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
| ” |
| “ | Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. | ” |
| “ | One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards. | ” |
| “ | One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.
| ” |
| “ | Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.
| ” |
| “ | Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. | ” |
| “ | 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. | ” |
| “ | Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.
| ” |
| “ | Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. | ” |
| “ | It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is fatal. | ” |
| “ | It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information. | ” |
| “ | Illusion is the first of all pleasures. | ” |
| “ | If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you. | ” |
| “ | 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.
| ” |
| “ | I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.
| ” |
| “ | I am not young enough to know everything.
| ” |
| “ | I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.
| ” |
| “ | Genius is born--not paid. | ” |
| “ | Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
| ” |
| “ | Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
| ” |
| “ | Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. | ” |
| “ | Biography lends to death a new terror. | ” |
| “ | At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets. | ” |
| “ | Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
| ” |
| “ | Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. | ” |
| “ | America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
| ” |
| “ | America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
| ” |
| “ | Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
| ” |
| “ | A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her. | ” |
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