Thoughts by Oscar Wilde Quotes in English Quotation

When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I daresay, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one's life.

Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.

Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.

A beautiful woman risking everything for a mad passion. A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a hideous, treacherous crime. Months of voiceless agony, and then a child born in pain. The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. Yes, it was an interesting background. It posed the lad, made him more perfect as it were. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.

She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. I love her, and I must make her love me. I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.

The ugly and stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live-- undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They never bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Henry; my brains, such as they are-- my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks-- we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.

Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancy yourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to play... I tell you, that it is on things like these that our lives depend.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognizes infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it. It is not selfish to think for oneself. A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one's neighbor that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him. A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

Any place you love is the world to you.

- Quotation

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Conscience makes egotists of us all.

Create yourself. Be yourself your poem.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

A flower blossoms for its own joy.

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

What fire does not destroy, it hardens.

I can resist anything except temptation.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

She lives the poetry she cannot write.

Truth is independent of facts always.

Art only begins where Imitation ends.

Either this wallpaper goes, or I do.

The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

The only horrible thing in the world is ennui.

Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.

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

Each of us has heaven and hell in him...

The world is a stage and the play is badly cast.

You can never be overdressed or overeducated.

I analyzed you, though you did not adore me.

Life is too important to be taken seriously.

I have nothing to declare except my genius.

I love acting. It is so much more real than life.

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

Man is many things, but he is not rational.

Every impulse we strangle will only poison us.

Experience is a question of instinct about life.

No good deed goes unpunished.

She is a peacock in everything but beauty!

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

I am happy in my prison of passion.

Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

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

Oscar Wilde Quotations in English

I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else.

Hearts are made to be broken.

I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.

Genius lasts longer than beauty.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

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

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.

All art is quite useless.

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To define is to limit.

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Who, being loved, is poor?

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There is no sin except stupidity.

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A mask tells us more than a face.

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Wisdom comes with winters.

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Every woman is a rebel.

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Everything popular is wrong.

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Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

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Life is too short to learn German.

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Only the shallow know themselves.

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Punctuality is the thief of time.

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A kiss may ruin a human life.

Each man kills the thing he loves.

True friends stab you in the front.

Most people are boring and stupid.

The moon in her chariot of pearl.

Love is easily killed.

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I can resist everything except temptation.

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I have never given adoration to any body except myself.

I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.

Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.

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

Crying is for plain women. Pretty women go shopping.

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

Love is not fashionable anymore; the poets have killed it.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

But youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms.

Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.

Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.

With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?

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

After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations.

I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

I don’t want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.

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

Pleasure is the only thing one should live for, nothing ages like happiness.

Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

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

I didn't say I liked it Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference.

The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me.

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

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

Life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.

The old believe everything; the middle aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

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

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.

I know. In fact, I am never wrong.

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

Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing.

There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose.

I like men who have a future and women who have a past.

When the Gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

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

I never put off till tomorrow what I can possibly do - the day after.

It is the stupid and the ugly who have the best of it in this world.

Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.

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

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they're better.

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

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

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

It takes great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.

If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.

The heart was made to be broken.

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

I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.

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

Most people live for love and admiration. But it is by love and admiration that we should live.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.

Literature always anticipates life. It doesn't copy it but moulds it to it's purpose.

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

You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

The one charm about the past is that it is the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen.

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

The only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past while every sinner has a future.

You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.

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 man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.

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

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes...

We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.

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

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

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence.

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

I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.

Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.

In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.

Everything is going to be fine in the end.
If it's not fine it's not the end.

Conformity is the last refuge of the unimaginitive.

Bad artists always admire each others work.

The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.

Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.

We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.

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

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

Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.

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

For he who lives more lives than one more deaths than one must die.

Memory is the diary we all carry about with us.

I knew nothing but shadows and I thought them to be real.

Some things are too important to be taken seriously.

This wallpaper is dreadful, one of us will have to go.

Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.

Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good.

Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you.

A good friend will always stab you in the front.

Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered.

To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.

Everything in moderation, including moderation.

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.

Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.

I never change, except in my affections.

When good Americans die, they go to Paris.

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

To be popular one must be a mediocrity.

One should always be a little improbable.

It is always the unreadable that occurs.

Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.

Consistency is the hallmark of the unimaginative.

The one charm about the past is that it is the past.

Just because a man has died for it, does not make it true.

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.

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

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

You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.

One has a right to judge a man by the effect he has over his friends.

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

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.

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

What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.

To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.

The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man is.

Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.

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

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

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

The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us.

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

If we're always guided by other people's thoughts, what's the point in having our own?

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

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

Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.

With freedom, flowers, books, and the moon, who could not be perfectly happy?

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

Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.

In war, the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich makes slaves of the poor.

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

A man who takes himself too seriously will find that no one else takes him seriously.

A passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young.

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

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

To become a spectator of one's own life is to escape the suffering of life.

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

I cannot choose one hundred best books because I have only written five.

For one moment our lives met, our souls touched.

I drink to separate my body from my soul.

Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.

A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

I don't want to earn my living, I want to live.

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

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

Women are made to be loved, not understood.

Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.

A writer is someone who has taught his mind to misbehave.

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

Hear no evil, speak no evil, and you won't be invited to cocktail parties.

Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.

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

Now produce your explanation and pray make it improbable.

We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.

Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed.

One should always be in love. That's the reason one should never marry.

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

Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.

Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.

I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.

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

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

When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good, we are not always happy.

I like talking to a brick wall- it's the only thing in the world that never contradicts me!

Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them.

She is very clever, too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness.

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

Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs.

It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.

I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting.

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

I am always late on principle, my principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.

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

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.

I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.

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

The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.

The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.

Memory is the diary that chronicles things that never happened or couldn't possibly have happened.

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

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

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.

The nicest feeling in the world is to do a good deed anonymously-and have somebody find out.

She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.

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

Its a beautiful woman's fate to be the subject of conversation where ever she goes.

I am not young enough to know everything.

Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.

The secret to life is to enjoy the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.

As for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.

I don’t say we all ought to misbehave. But we ought to look as if we could.

I want to be good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being hideous.

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.

I love to talk about nothing. It's the only thing I know anything about.

In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.

If you want to be a doormat you have to lay yourself down first.

I beg your pardon I didn't recognise you - I've changed a lot.

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

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

I can believe anything provided it is incredible.

But she is happiest alone. She is happiest alone.

I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays.

Men always want to be a woman’s first love – women like to be a man’s last romance.

Alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, may produce all the effects of drunkenness.

How else but through a broken heart may Lord Christ enter in?

Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.

Life is a nightmare that prevents one from sleeping.

I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.

I'm a man of simple tastes. I'm always satisfied with the best.

Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.

Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.

Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things.

The worst of having a romance of any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic.

The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden. It ends with Revelations.

Indeed, no woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

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

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

Every woman becomes their mother. That's their tragedy. And no man becomes his. That's his tragedy.

Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless. . .

Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.

Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend’s success.

My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.

The basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.

Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is usually Judas who writes the biography.

A pessimist is somebody who complains about the noise when opportunity knocks.

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.

The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.

The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought and sold and bartered away.

The proper basis for marriage is a mutual misunderstanding.

The best way to make children good is to make them happy.

Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won't expect it back.

Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.

I am one of those who are made for exceptions, not for laws.

They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever.

With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.

The great events of the world take place in the brain...

To get back one's youth one has merely to repeat one's follies.

Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.

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

I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar and often convincing.

I never saw anybody take so long to dress, and with such little result.

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

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

He made me see what Life is, and what Death signifies, and why Love is stronger than both.

He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself.

The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork.

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

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

It is better to be beautiful then to be good, but it is better to be good then to be ugly.

A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure.

There are two ways to dislike poetry: One is to dislike it; the other is to read Pope.

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.

America has never quite forgiven Europe for having been discovered somewhat earlier in history than itself.

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

To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people - that is all!

Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.

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

You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.

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

It is so easy to convince others; it is so difficult to convince oneself.

The tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self denial.

A simile committing suicide is always a depressing spectacle.

Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.

Where there is no love there is no understanding.

I am the only person I would like to know thoroughly.

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

Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.

It's the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

When it rains look for rainbows, when it's dark look for stars.

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

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

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

The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that 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.

Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.

The world is divided into two classes, those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable.

One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.

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

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.

I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who would call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one.

The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.

I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life.

Now art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

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

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

By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic.

I have learned this: it is not what one does that is wrong, but what one becomes as a consequence of it.

They've promised that dreams can come true - but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams, too.

Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity.

Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable.

Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders.

Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.

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

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

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

An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.

What men call the shadow of the body is not the shadow of the body, but is the body of the soul.

I must say... that I ruined myself: and that nobody, great or small, can be ruined except by his own hand.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.

The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable.

If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.

When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss Money.

I don’t write this letter to put bitterness into your heart, but to pluck it out of mine. For my own sake I must forgive you.

I have never met any really wicked person before. I feel rather frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like every one else.

Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.

Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which is never advisable.

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about it's use. It is hitting below the intellect.

Would you be in any way offended if I said that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection?

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world’s original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.

I can't help detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves.

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.

You seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.

My desire to live is as intense as ever, and though my heart is broken, hearts are made to be broken: that is why God sends sorrow into the world.

Misfortunes one can endure--they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one's own faults--ah!--there is the sting of life.

Imagination is a quality that was given to man compensate him from whats not. The sense of humor was given to console him from what is.

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.

Oh, don't cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don't know how to spell a cough.

He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him.

When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring. *

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

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

Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.

I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.

If one doesn't talk about a thing, it has never happened. It is simply expression that gives reality to things.

Oh! I don't think I would like to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about.

I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours.

One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.

Good taste is the excuse I've always given for leading such a bad life.

It is not wise to find symbols in everything that one sees. It makes life too full of terrors.

It is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has been able to find its way.

As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.

I never take any notice to what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do.

The only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life.

People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.

Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.

One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.

They get up early, because they have so much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to think about.

The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.

Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.

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

Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.

To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.

If you don't get everything you want, think of the things you don't get that you don't want.

Hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental decay in the young, of physical weakness in the old.

The world seemed to me fine because you were in it, and goodness more real because you lived.

It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously.

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

I think it's very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.

And alien tears will fill for him pity's long broken urn. For his mourners will all be outcast men, and outcasts always mourn.

If there is anything more annoying in the world than having people talk about you, it is certainly having no one talk about you.

You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.

I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

Indeed I have always been of the opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do.

We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.

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

Every one is worthy of love, except him who thinks that he is. Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling.

To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.

I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says.

I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.

From the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. I was dominated, soul brain and power.

When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy.

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

It takes great courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it. And even more courage to see it in the one you love.

Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from 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.

The most terrible thing about it is not that it breaks one’s heart—hearts are made to be broken—but that it turns one’s heart to stone.

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.

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

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 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.

Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling, and Domine non sum dignus should be on the lips and in the hearts of those who receive it.

Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always prevent us from carrying them out.

I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational.

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.

Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.

You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.

There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted.

Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.

You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.

Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.

She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest. She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion was never returned, she had kept all her illusions. She tried to look picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy.

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.

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.

Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me quite nervous.

Dear little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘you tell me of marvelous things, but more marvelous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery.

In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all.

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.

It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words.

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.

Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain.

And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.

I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection.

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.

Oh! 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.

My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

Never mind what I say. I am always saying what I shouldn't say. In fact, I usually say what I really think. A great mistake nowadays. It makes one so liable to be misunderstood.

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, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.

But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality.

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.

Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer’s day.

The gods are strange. It is not our vices only they make instruments to scourge us. They bring us to ruin through what in us is good, gentle, humane, loving.

The final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?

It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

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!

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. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.

In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place.

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.

But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face.

Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation, and conversation must have a common basis, and between two people of widely different culture the only common basis possible is the lowest level.

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.

People say sometimes that Beauty is superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered: those who know what beauty is, and those who know what sorrow is: nobody else interests me.

It is perfectly monstrous,' he said, at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.

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.

I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. 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.

Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to someone who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day.

To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.

I don't like compliments, and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean.

After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring.

I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.

Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.

Yes: I am a dreamer. For 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.

Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about these things. What (women) like is to be a man’s last romance.

I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.

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.

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.

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

Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea.

Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern.

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.

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.

His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane was a psychological phenomenon of no small interest. There was no doubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire for new experiences; yet it was not a simple but rather a very complex passion.

When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.

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 his choice of enemies. I have not got one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me. Is that very vain of me? I think that it is rather vain.

I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood. Don't degrade me into the position of giving you useful information. Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

My dear boy, the people who only love once in their lives are really the 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.

It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little. I discern great sanity in the Greek attitude. They never chattered about sunsets, or discussed whether the shadows on the grass were really mauve or not. But they saw that the sea was for the swimmer, and the sand for the feet of the runner. They loved the trees for the shadow that they cast, and the forest for its silence at noon.

But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don't think.

Actors are so fortunate. They can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears. But in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications. Our Guildensterns play Hamlet for us, and our Hamlets have to jest like Prince Hal. The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

But we never get back our youth… The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to.

Be happy, cried the Nightingale, be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart's-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty. Flame-coloured are his wings, and coloured like flame is his body. His lips are sweet as honey, and his breath is like frankincense.

I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality selects is absolutely delightful to me.

If you want to be a grocer, or a general, or a politician, or a judge, you will invariably become it; that is your punishment. If you never know what you want to be, if you live what some might call the dynamic life but what I will call the artistic life, if each day you are unsure of who you are and what you know you will never become anything, and that is your reward.

After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own. Music always seems to me to produce that effect. It creates for one a past of which one has been ignorant, and fills one with a sense of sorrows that have been hidden from one’s tears.

I won't tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world's voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely - or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now.

You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid.

Oscar Wilde Thoughts in English

I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact.

There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtures are not real to him. His sins, if there are such thing as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him.