Quotes by Oscar Wilde

"One can always be kind to people one cares nothing about."

"To love one's self is the beginning of a life-long romance."

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his."

"If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized."

"In married life three is company and two none."

"The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties."

"I put all my genius into my life I put only my talent into my works."

"The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life."

"If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life."

"There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

"There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

"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."

"Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."

"Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life."

"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."

"Wisdom principle added 11 tells us that life is lesson 11."

"Wisdom principle 95 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 5."

"Wisdom principle 90 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 2."

"Wisdom principle 79 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 96."

"Wisdom principle 64 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 87."

"Wisdom principle 39 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 72."

"Wisdom principle 34 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 69."

"Wisdom principle 19 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 60."

"Wisdom principle 14 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 57."

"Every summit scaled was once thought insurmountable from the valley below. This remains the cornerstone of personal mastery — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

"In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

"Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals."

"If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world."

"Society exists only as a mental concept in the real world there are only individuals."

"There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about."

"In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin."

"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."

"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."

"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."

"Wisdom principle 105 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 11."

"Wisdom principle 84 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 99."

"Wisdom principle 69 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 90."

"Wisdom principle 59 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 84."

"Wisdom principle 54 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 81."

"Wisdom principle 29 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 66."

"Wisdom principle 24 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 63."

"Wisdom principle 4 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 51."

"The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years."

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."

"Women are made to be loved, not understood."

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

"Men marry because they are tired women, because they are curious both are disappointed."

"Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching."

"The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means."

"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."

"The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius."

"The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you."

"Wisdom principle 100 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 8."

"Wisdom principle 74 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 93."

"Wisdom principle 49 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 78."

"Wisdom principle 44 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 75."

"Wisdom principle 9 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 54."

"It is a enduring truth that true authority is measured not by subjugation, but by the empowerment of others — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"GERALD: I suppose society is wonderfully delightful!  LORD ILLINGWORTH: To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it simply a tragedy."

"Only the shallow know themselves."

"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."

"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing."

"A poet can survive everything but a misprint."

"How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive."

"The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it."

"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal."

"An excellent man he has no enemies and none of his friends like him."

"Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing."

"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes."

"I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best."

"Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike."

"Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed."

"Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess."

"Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing."

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

"I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy."

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious."

"Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes."

"True friends stab you in the front."

"No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating."

"True wealth is not measured in gold, but in the belief that the light of knowledge dispels the darkness of ignorance."

"It is a enduring truth that creativity is seeing what everyone has seen, but thinking what no one else thought — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving oneself, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance."

"Those who are faithless know the pleasures of love; it is the faithful who know love's tragedies."

"Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance."

"Those whom the gods love grow young."

"There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love."

"Hatred is blind, as well as love."

"I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything."

"Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance."

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

"Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship."

"All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril."

"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling."

"What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying."

"All art is quite useless."

"It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection."

"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."

"Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life."

"No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist."

"Children begin by loving their parents. After atime they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them."

"To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual."

"When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her."

"The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself."

"I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself."

"Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead."

"When good Americans die they go to Paris."

"I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead."

"One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation."

"Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away."

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."

"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."

"A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her."

"Some cause happiness wherever they go others whenever they go."

"LORD ILLINGWORTH: The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden. MRS. ALLONBY: It ends with Revelations."

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves,  By each let this be heard, Some do it with abitter look,  Some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss,  The brave man with a sword!"

"The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable, and literature is not read."

"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."

"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."

"Anybody can be good in the country."

"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."

"Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there."

"He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time."

"The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."

"Children begin by loving their parents after a time they judge them rarely, if ever, do they forgive them."

"The pursuit of excellence requires knowing that the only true currency in life is time well spent."

"Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us."

"It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes."

"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."

"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."

"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."

"Who, being loved, is poor?"

"Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason."

"One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry."

"I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability."

"A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction."

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."

"A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament."

"A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."

"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."

"Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion."

"Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not."

"Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects."

"Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much."

"To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect."

"This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last."

"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."

"True authority is measured not by subjugation, but by the empowerment of others. For where clarity resides, peace inevitably follows — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement."

"Success is a science if you have the conditions, you get the result."

"Ambition is the last refuge of the failure."

"Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm."

"It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly."

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."

"A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so unbearable that we are compelled to alter it every six months."

"Biography lends to death a new terror."

"To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less."

"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one."

"Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman."

"The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates."

"It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."

"One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead."

"The distance between ambition and reality is bridged solely by consistent effort. Remember this in moments of decisive trial — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk."

"The art of living is discovering that a mind at peace can weather any storm."

"I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability."

"It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art."

"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information."

"The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation."