Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 3

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

Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people.And falsehoods the truths of other people.Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.

To get into the best society nowadays one has either to feed people amuse people or shock people.

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

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

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

And to the little Squirrel who lived in the fir-tree, and was lonely, he said, 'Where is my mother?' And the Squirrel answered, 'Thou hast slain mine. Dost thou seek to slay thine also?

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

It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain.It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

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

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

JACKYour duty as a gentleman calls you back. ALGERNONMy duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree.

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

Outside the family circle, papa, I'm glad to say, is entirely unknown. I think that is quite as it should be. The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man.

Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!

Behind the perfection of a man's style, must lie the passion of a man's soul.

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?

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

Those whom the gods love grow young.

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

With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.

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.

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. Choose!

It is only about things that do not interest one, that one can give a really unbiassed opinion; and this is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always valueless.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious

I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses anyone for asking any question - simple curiosity.

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 arts that have escaped [uniformity] best are the arts in which the public take no interest. Poetry is an instance of what I mean. We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it.

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 come down here to console me. That is charming of you. You find me consoled, and you are furious. How like a sympathetic person!

It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free.

Hearts Live By Being Wounded

There are works which wait, and which one does not understand for a long time; the reason is that they bring answers to questions which have not yet been raised; for the question often arrives a terribly long time after the answer.

Ah! that is the great thing in life, to live the truth.

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast,

Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.

Would you like to know the great drama of my life? It is that I have put my genius into my life...I have put only my talent into my works.

The only way to atone for being occasionally a little over-dressed is by being always absolutely over-educated.

Why can't these American women stay in their own country? They are always telling us that it is the paradise for women.It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively anxious to get out of it.

When good Americans die, they go to Paris.

Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. 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.

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

MISS PRISMMemory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.

A woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on.

People cry out against the sinner, yet it is not the sinful, but the stupid, who are our shame. There is no sin except stupidity.

And yet it was not the mystery, but the comedy of suffering that struck him; its absolute uselessness, its grotesque want of meaning. How incoherent everything seemed! How lacking in all harmony! He was amazed at the discord between the shallow optimism of the day, and the real facts of existence. He was still very young.

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.

The aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: … But may I ask, at heart, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Those seem to be the only two fashionable religions left to us nowadays.MRS CHEVELEY: Oh, I'm neither. Optimism begins in a broad grin, and Pessimism ends with blue spectacles. Besides, they are both of them merely poses.SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: You prefer to be natural?MRS CHEVELEY: Sometimes. But it is such a very difficult pose to keep up.(Act I., lines 132-140)

(A country where) the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.

He wants to enslave you.''I shudder at the thought of being free.

Indeed, as a rule, everybody turns out to be somebody else.

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

What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!" exclaimed Lord Henry. " A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.