Oscar Wilde Quotes (991 Quotes)

Philosophy teaches us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of others

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

Indeed, in many respects she was quite English and was an excellent example of the fact that we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, the language

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

Ah, every day dear Herbert becomes de plus en plus Oscarie. It is wonderful case of nature imitating art.

To have friends, you know, one need only be good-natured but when a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him.

A sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn't know the market price of any single thing.

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

When one pays a visit it is for the purpose of wasting other people's time, not one's own.

Personality must be accepted for what it is. You mustn't mind that a poet is a drunk, rather that drunks are not always poets.

The Governor was strong upon The Regulations Act The Doctor said that Death was but A scientific fact And twice a day the Chaplain called, And left a little tract.

There is no sin except stupidity.

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

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.

To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing.

Bad artists always admire each other's work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those he has selected.

To toil for a hard master is bitter, but to have no master to toil for is more bitter still

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

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

If they have not opened the eyes of the blind, they have at least given great encouragement to the short-sighted, and while their leaders may have all the inexperience of old age, their young men are far too wise to be ever sensible.

The worst form of tyranny the world has ever known the tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts.

When a woman marries again it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck men risk theirs.

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

Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.

There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies.

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

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

This wallpaper is dreadful. One of us has simply got to go.

Tread lightly, she is near; Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear; The daisies grow.

A man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralizes is invariably plain.

They afterwards took me to a dancing saloon where I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across. Over the piano was printed a notice- 'Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.'

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

When they reached the end of the room he stopped, and muttered some words she could not understand. She opened her eyes, and saw the wall slowly fading away like a mist, and a great black cavern in front of her. A bitter cold wind swept round them, and she felt something pulling at her dress. Quick, quick, cried the Ghost, or it will be too late, and, in a moment, the wainscoting had closed behind them, and the Tapestry Chamber was empty.

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

It is only fair to state, with regard to modern journalists, that they always apologize to one in private for what they have written against one in public.

Yes, I am a thorough republican. No other form of government is so favorable to the growth of art.

Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.

Nothing makes one so vain as being told one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all.

And the wild regrets and the bloody sweats None knew so well as I That he who lives more lives than one, More deaths than one shall die.

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

Where there is no extravagance there is no love, and where there is no love there is no understanding.