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Famous Quotes by Oscar Wilde

• London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognise them. They look so... More
• Cecil Graham: What is a cynic?
  Lord Darlington: A man who knows the price of everything and... More
• The sign of a Philistine age is the cry of immorality against art. More
• Better the rule of One, whom all obey,
  Than to let clamorous demagogues betray
  Our... More
• For an artist to marry his model is as fatal as for a gourmet to marry his cook: the one gets no... More
• The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast. More
• It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. More
• I can resist everything except temptation. More
• We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. More
• Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love,... More
• The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic. More
• There is no such thing as morality or immorality in thought. There is immoral emotion. More
• While one should always study the method of a great artist, one should never imitate his manner.... More
• If a man needs an elaborate tombstone in order to remain in the memory of his country, it is... More
• The Americans are certainly hero-worshippers, and always take their heroes from the criminal... More
• Mr. Edward Carson, QC: Do you drink champagne yourself?
  Mr. Oscar Wilde: Yes; iced champagne... More
• Those whom the gods love grow young. More
• The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either,... More
• It is very vulgar to talk about one’s business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then... More
• The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks... More
• Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to... More
• Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They... More
• The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and... More
• Popularity is the crown of laurel which the world puts on bad art. Whatever is popular is wrong. More
• There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm... More
• It is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of... More
• Either that wallpaper goes, or I do. More
• I have nothing to declare except my genius. More
• Lord Illingworth: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.
  Mrs. Allonby:... More
• The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at... More
• Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. More
• To many, no doubt, he will seem to be somewhat blatant and bumptious, but we prefer to regard him... More
• Nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion. More
• A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain. More
• There’s nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It’s a thing no married... More
• Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. More
• My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don’t know anything... More
• A sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and... More
• It is only the superficial qualities that last. Man’s deeper nature is soon found out. More
• I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business engagement, if one wants to retain... More
• The mere mechanical technique of acting can be taught, but the spirit that is to give life to... More
• A man’s very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats... More
• What is said of a man is nothing. The point is, who says it. More
• All trials are trials for one’s life, just as all sentences are sentences of death. More
• We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by... More
• Scepticism is the beginning of Faith. More
• In spite of the roaring of the young lions at the Union, and the screaming of the rabbits in the... More
• Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones. More
• Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes. More
• In this world there are two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is... More
• I dislike modern memoirs. They are generally written by people who have either entirely lost... More
• All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction. More
• A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. More
• The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when one... More
• My heart is as some famine-murdered land
  Whence all good things have perished... More
• Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand,
  For I am drowning in a stormier... More
• All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is... More
• Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer. More
• What is termed Sin is an essential element of progress. Without it the world would stagnate, or... More
• Yes; the public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius. More
• Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a... More
• The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it. More
• Newspapers ... give us the bald, sordid, disgusting facts of life. They chronicle, with degrading... More
• If they have not opened the eyes of the blind, they have at least given great encouragement to... More
• Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the... More
• Public Opinion ... an attempt to organise the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to... More
• Conversation should touch everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing. More
• Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic—a temperament exquisitely susceptible to... More
• There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the... More
• Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil... More
• Bad artists always admire each other’s work. They call it being large-minded and free from... More
• What is mind but motion in the intellectual sphere? More
• From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the... More
• A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. More
• Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that... More
• There is no sin except stupidity. More
• It is well for our vanity that we slay the criminal, for if we suffered him to live he might show... More
• The nineteenth century is a turning point in history, simply on account of the work of two men,... More
• Whatever, in fact, is modern in our life we owe to the Greeks. Whatever is an anachronism is due... More
• The real weakness of England lies, not in incomplete armaments or unfortified coasts, not in the... More
• No, Ernest, don’t talk about action.... It is the last resource of those who know not how to... More
• That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one’s own soul. It is more... More
• Life! Life! Don’t let us go to life for our fulfilment or our experience. It is a thing... More
• Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it. More
• Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take... More
• As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon... More
• Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and... More
• The mere existence of conscience, that faculty of which people prate so much nowadays, and are so... More
• To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy. It merely... More
• It is well for his peace that the saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the... More
• The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing at all. More
• Formerly we used to canonise our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarise them. Cheap editions... More
• I seem to have heard that observation before.... It has all the vitality of error and all the... More
• To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of... More
• It is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has been able to find its way. More
• Modern pictures are, no doubt, delightful to look at. At least, some of them are. But they are... More
• I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. More
• Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect... More
• On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one’s mind. It becomes a... More
• If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life. More

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