Oscar Wilde Quotes (991 Quotes)

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

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

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.

Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.

I can believe in anything. Provided it is quite remarkable.

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.

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

Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to play a part.

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

There seemed to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance.

We have quite the same ideas. No; I think our ideas are quite different. But he has been most pleasant.

Yes Harry I believe that is true. I cannot help telling you things. You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime I would come and confess it to you. You would understand me.

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.

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

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

Genie währt länger als Schönheit.

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

I worshipped you too much. I am punished for it. You worshipped yourself too much. We are both punished.

Jemanden zu beeinflussen bedeutet, ihm eine fremde Seele zu geben.

Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval.

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

There was a silence. The evening darkened in the room. Noiselessly and with silver feet the shadows crept in from the garden. The colours faded wearily out of things.

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

Yes, very sensible... People die of common sense, Dorian, one lost moment at a time. Life is a moment. There is no hereafter. So make it burn always with the hardest flame.

I know. In fact, I am never wrong.

To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.

Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us to do something for them.

Genius lasts longer than beauty

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

If I could get back my youth, I'd do anything in the world except get up early, take exercise or be respectable.

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

Poor? What does that matter? When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window.

The only horrible thing in the world is ennui.

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.

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

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

I never change, except in my affections.

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

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

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

I had buried my romance in a bed of asphodel.

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

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

She is all the great heroines of the world in one.

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

There was something in his face that made one trust him at once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as youth's passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from the world.

What absurd fellows you are, both of you! I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given.

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

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.

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