Oscar Wilde Quotes on People (46 Quotes)

A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do.

I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you. But you should not say the greatest romance of your life. You should say the first romance of your life. You will always be loved, and you will always be in love with love. A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes of a country. Don't be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning.

I love scandals about other people, but scandals about myself do not interest me. The have not got the charm of novelty.

Most people are boring and stupid.

The aim of life is self-development. To realise one's nature perfectly-that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked.

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

Vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people.

I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where people don't talk politics.

Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything, and when they grow older, they know it

My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all.

One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

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

Vulgarity is the conduct of other people, just as falsehoods are the truths of other people.

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.

In fact, the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people. . . . The Japanese people are. . . simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art.

Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf.

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

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

Lots of people act well, but few people talk well. This shows that talking is the more difficult of the two.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.

The more one analyses people, the more all reasons for analysis disappear. Sooner or later one comes to that dreadful universal thing called human nature.

People fashion their God after their own understanding. They make their God first and worship him afterwards.

Philanthropy seems to me to have become simply the refuge of people who wish to annoy their fellow creatures

As a wicked man I am a complete failure. Why, there are lots of people who say I have never really done anything wrong in the whole course of my life. Of course they only say it behind my back.

People who love only once in their lives are. . . shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.

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

Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob

And, by the way, one of the most delightful things I find in America is meeting a people without prejudice -- everywhere open to the truth.

I'm sure I don't know half the people who come to my house. Indeed, from all I hear, I shouldn't like to.

Some people cause happiness wherever they go. Some people cause happiness whenever they go.

Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do.

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

People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately

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

All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.

Flowers are as common in the country as people are in London.

Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.

There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.

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

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.

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

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

People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all.

Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilization.

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