Oscar Wilde Quotes on Society & Civilization (16 Quotes)

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

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

The security of Society lies in custom and unconscious instinct, and the basis of the stability of Society, as a healthy organism, is the complete absence of any intelligence amongst its members.

The aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of civilized society.

She is absolutely inadmissible into society. Many a woman has a past, but I am told that she has at least a dozen, and that they all fit.

Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.

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

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

I love London society I think it has immensely improved. It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what Society should be.

Comfort is the only thing our civilization can give us.

Society often forgives the criminal it never forgives the dreamer.

Civilization requires slaves. Human slavery is wrong, insecure and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.

Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another.

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

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

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.